Polarity
by Chris Myers
Summary: When a Romero-style zombie outbreak hits, three supervillains, led by a long time loser, find themselves doing whatever it takes to save themselves, and eventually, the rest of humanity.
1. Prologue

"Lady, take my hand!"

She's scared, and she has every right to be. Even if New York City wasn't going to Hell in a handbasket at this particular moment, and even if she hadn't seen two of her companions torn to pieces in front of her, she would probably still be nervous at the site of me just two feet away from her.

Of course, with my luck, she probably would have just started hitting me with her purse while screaming for help.

But right now, I'm her only option, and I'm screaming for her to grab my hand so I can get her out of this mess.

Something scrapes at the back of my suit. Through the quilted fabric, it feels like someone pushing a lint roller along my spine. I can afford to ignore it for the moment, because right now, it's all about this lady is huddled up in the corner of the bedroom, pushing as far away from me and the things behind me as she can get.

"Lady, it's me or these guys, and I ain't going to bite you in the butt, now come on!" Maybe it's my intimidating voice. Maybe it's my shiny silver metal gauntlets. Or maybe it's because the series of moans in the next room mean several more guests have just crashed this party. Whatever the case, she reaches out; mumbling a few words in what I think is French. When she's close enough, I grab her hand, holding it tightly and making sure she can't run away, before turning to deal with whoever is scraping at my back.

I register a form, an outline in the dark bedroom. It's lunging for me, which, as far as I'm concerned, makes it fair game. My free hand comes up, and I push the trigger with my thumb. It's a small level-one blast, but it's enough to catch him square in the face and send him flying backwards. I watch it flip over the bed, its legs catching on the mattress, and land with a thump on its side. Any other situation, the bastard could be sleeping. The lady screams at the sound of my gloves firing, but she doesn't let go of my hand.

The light of the fire burning across the street lets me see several more forms trying to push through the narrow doorway. The thing I shot in the face is motionless on the bed. With any luck, I scrambled its brains for good. Without turning, I say, "come on, we're going out the window." I have to yank slightly, but the French woman stumbles along without too much trouble.

The fire escape outside the sixth-floor window is clear. "Go," I said. I'm not sure she understands the command, but she sees me pointing with my gauntlet, and that's enough for her to climb out slowly. I don't rush her, because I don't know what the hell is out there. If she starts screaming, I'll deal with it. But, luckily for us, she doesn't. Two of those forms had made it into the bedroom before I climb out the window after her. I make sure to slam it behind me before leaning over the railing to look down. The alley looks clear, lit up by the fire raging in the building across the way. There's a few forms lying face down on the ground amidst the scattered bags of garbage, but they ain't getting back up after getting a direct blast right in the face.

The Frenchwoman is staring at me, and I get my first good look at her. She's blonde, winsome in form, and her eyes are wide with what can only be a case of pants-wetting fear. I can't blame her, really. On the other side of that window are a bunch of psychopathic murderers. And even though I'm the guy who saved her life, I'm wearing what amounts to a form-fitting quilt and shiny metal gloves and boots.

But she's from France, so she probably doesn't know who I am anyway. Maybe she thinks I'm one of the good guys.

Well, lately, I have been one of the good guys. One of the stupid, righteous, chivalrous, good guys. Go figure.

I step in front of her, going down the metal steps, moving slow enough to keep her right behind me. I can make out 10th Avenue through the end of the alleyway. Looks clear enough for me. I use my tongue to turn on my mask's two-way radio. "Aleksei, I got one more for you."

"Nice work, Herman!" Aleksei's voice is full of way more joy then the global situation calls for, but considering the potential for one little victory here, I'll let it slide. "You far from the subway? We're all still here, and no more of those creeps have shown up."

"Two, three blocks. We can..."

The sound of shattering glass causes me to whip around. We were on the second floor, passing the final window on this side of the building, when the gray hands came smashing through. On reflex, I wave my arms to shield myself from the flying shards of glass. The Frenchwoman picks right now to start screaming, and I raise my voice to make sure my friend hears me over her. "We can make it to Houston Street, keep an eye out!"

There are about three arms reaching through the broken window for us. One of them, the forearm has gotten stuck on one of the shards of glass sticking out of the frame, and the efforts of its owner is causing the glass to slice it open. The red blood that comes flowing out is in sharp contrast to the color of the skin. The Frenchwoman has backed against the railing, trying to push past me and get away from the reaching digits. I take a step forward and shove both fists towards the pane. I can't make out what or who is inside, but a level two blast should clear the nearby schmucks. It would be easy to just ignore them and shove past, but it wouldn't hurt to give a boost to this woman's morale.

FWOOSH!

The grabbing hands disappear. Immediately, I grab the woman's arm. "Come on, move, move!" I know she probably can't understand me, but in a stressful situation like this, actions count for more than words, especially with a barking American accent behind them. Part of me thinks I should drop into German, but that would just be rude and crass. Good guy, remember?

I let her climb down to the alleyway first before dropping down behind her. I was originally going to go towards 11th Avenue and see if there was anyone else in that direction, but I had gotten lucky rescuing the one civilian. I wasn't about to push my luck and risk her life. Houston Street was over on 7th Avenue, three blocks away. I still had a good charge in my gauntlets, and the suit was intact. We just had to be aware of our surroundings. I knew we'd run into more of those fucks along the way, but as long as I saw them coming, I wasn't too worried. I wasn't invulnerable by a long shot, but I could definitely outthink and out-react anything short of a howling mob.

Right. And if you believe that, I got a bridge to sell you, heads right over the river to Brooklyn, and it's currently being secured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.

I point towards 10th Avenue. "Safety," I tell the Frenchwoman. She gives me a bit of a blank stare. After a few seconds, I tried words that had been on everyone's lips since that very first night. "Rescue Station?" It wasn't a rescue station I was taking her towards, because from what I saw, those places were death traps. But it was close enough, admit. No longer occupying private residences my ass.

That phrase got to her. She lit up a bit, nodding. "Rezcue," she said. "Rezcue station, yes." I nodded in response. Taking her hand, I began to lead her down the alleyway before I felt a tap on my padded shoulder.

"I am Marie," she responded when I turned around, tapping her chest.

I nodded again. "Marie."

She pointed at me. "You are...Avenger?"

That word caused me to laugh out loud. I knew, tactically, it was a bad mistake, since any sound made by a human seemed to attract mobs of the things that had swarmed over the Big Apple in the past week. But I couldn't help it. To be associated with that bunch of Boy Scouts was absolutely absurd...

Then again, wasn't I being a Boy Scout right now? I could be hiding out in a secure undisclosed location, letting it all fall down around me and a few select friends (ok, three or four select friends, and definitely a few "I'll sleep with you because it's the end of the world" female friends) and waiting for someone else to pick up the pieces. But here I was, risking life, limb, and quite literally my ass to rescue some blonde who doesn't even know who I am from nearly certain death.

I pointed to the yellow-and-brown uniform. "Non...no Avenger."


	2. You May Know My Name

My name is Herman Schultz.

You should know me as the Shocker.

I've been around for a few years. I've been arrested seventeen times. I've been convicted fifteen times. I've escaped from jail fifteen times. I've fought seventeen different superheroes, including Spider-Man, who's handed me my ass six times out of eleven. It's enough to get me on "America's Most Devious." You've seen me on TV. Five-foot-eight, one hundred eighty-five pounds, brown hair, brown eyes. Even got my own Wikipedia page.

What it hasn't gotten me is a lick of respect.

I mean, seriously. The Lizard gets more respect then me, because, and I quote here, "he represents man's losing the fight against nature." Mysterio "dazzles Spider-Man with spectacular effects." The Vulture "swoops and cackles with glee at the thought of killing Spider-Man."

One is a two-legged reptile in a white lab coat, one wears a damn fishbowl on his head, and one is a balding guy who flies. But they're "A-list." I'm "B-list." I'm a guy who doesn't even get a full response from Code Blue when I show up.

Ah...sorry. The last thing in the world I want to do is throw myself a god damn pity party. But it's the truth, and it's just one of those things that irk me. I don't have a PhD in electronics and mechanical theory like Doctor Octopus, but I built myself these very gauntlets, over four months, while working in a prison laundry. Maybe if I added "Doctor" to my name, I'd get more respect. And I thought about that, while drunk one night, until I found out there's a porno starring Ron Jeremy called "Doctor Shocker."

Granted, I didn't get into villainy solely for respect. I went in for the scores. The big payoffs, the jobs that would set you up for life. Planning for months at a time, getting the gear, gathering the people, setting the timetable...that's what I lived for. I prided on being creative and above idiots who walk into a bank during their lunch hour, start blasting, and complain when Luke Cage is handing them their ass five minutes later. The guy who caused a blackout and then spelled out his name using the ConEd power grid before demanding a million bucks to turn it all back on? That was me.

Not Electro.

Me.

In the end, that didn't make a bit of difference. Spider-Man showed up, beat me up, wisecracking the entire time, and left me hanging from a lamppost for NYPD bike cops to arrest. Meanwhile, someone like the Green Goblin (ahem...sorry, someone like the "rehabilitated" Norman Osborn) goes on a killing spree and he's considered a cunning and dangerous foe. Not the guy who planned bank jobs specifically to NOT kill anyone. Makes me a "pineapple-colored loser" in Spider-Man's eyes, even though I have a better record against him...

Granted, in the end, both Green Goblin and I get the same thing from Spidey: a punch in the face. But a guy like Osborn says "look, I'm reformed" and everyone believes him, while if I tried to pull that shtick, the first question asked would be "who are you?"

God damn it. Sorry. Trust me though, it explains my motivation for why I was doing what I was doing, instead of taking advantage of this crisis to knock over Citibank. Ok, bad example. Like Citibank had enough money for me to waste time on...

Alright, this all started when I was sitting in the Bar with No Name. There I was, celebrating my thirty-second birthday with the usual bunch of scum and villainy. One guy was running late, but everyone else was there. Fred Myers, who shares a spot on the "B-list" with me as Boomerang. James Sanders, better known as the Speed Demon. And Peter Petruski, aka the Trapster. All of us had been part of the Sinister Syndicate. Turns out, we made tolerable drinking buddies, the four of us. We usually included the Beetle, but he went legit and became MACH-I. That night, it was just us supervillains...

X

"I'm thirty two years old, and what do I have to show for it?"

"Your health, mate." Boomerang was bent over the pool table, lining up a shot. "You're healthy, you ain't in jail, and you can afford to actually pay your bar tab here from time to time." With a crack, the stick hit the cue ball, which smacked into the nine ball, which hit the eleven ball, which ricocheted off the felt and into the eight ball, which rolled across the entire length of the table before landing in the corner pocket.

"Why do I play pool with you," I said, shaking my head.

"Because I'm too good at darts," the Aussie replied. "Go ahead, loser racks, winner breaks."

"I'll rack, but see if someone else wants in. I'm gonna grab a brew."

I started taking the pool balls out of the pockets as Fred yelled across the bar towards where the other guys in our party sat. "James, Peter, you guys want in on this?"

"In a few minutes, sure." Speed Demon was popping the top off of a Budweiser as he responded. He put the cold bottle to his exposed cheek and sighed in relief before taking a swig. "Give me a few to get my buzz on."

Trapster had just finished his third beer of the evening. Getting up from the bar, he strode over to the table just as I finished racking. "I'll play, Fred. Winner gets James?"

"Sounds good." Boomerang was chalking the end of his pool cue as Trapster took a hold of the one I had been using. The pool table was ratty and had been refelted too many times to recall, but there were always brand spanking new pool sticks for us to use. At least once a week, someone would get upset and break the stick over their knees. The policy of "you break one, you bring one" had served the watering hole for a long time, and even the worst scum and villainy respected the code of the Bar with No Name.

"Just don't cheat, alright," I heard Trapster say as I sat next to Speed Demon and ordered myself a Budweiser too. The bartender had been behind the bar for as long as I could remember, no matter where the Bar itself had been located. Hell's Kitchen? He was there. When the Bar was over in Red Hook, he was the guy slinging the drinks. Shea Stadium? He had on a damn Yankees cap. All those years, and I never once got his name...

It was just the five of us at this point in the early evening. The Bar had just moved to Alphabet City, and it usually took a few weeks for the normal clientele to make their way to the new locale. At the night went on, the place would start to fill up. Tonight, though, the four of us were going to get a head start on the evening's activities.

"So why the long face, man?"

"Huh?" I had just taken a pull from the bottle as Speed Demon asked his question. "Aww, nothing..."

"Bull. I've been around the block, Herman, so don't bother playing it off. The hell is wrong with you tonight?" Demon had already finished half the bottle. He was obviously trying to get hammered, and with his fast metabolism, he was trying to drink twice as much, half as fast. It was weird to have James here. The two of us had worked on a safecracking job a few months back that had gone south when the capes had shown up. Before I could blink, the man has disabled my weaponry, taken everything out of the safe, and shot out into the street, leaving me facing some very unhappy good guys. I caught up with him, no pun intended, two weeks later, and when I asked him, at point-blank range, why he had left me to take the rap, James slid me a cold beer and said "Gambling debts. The Bookie was going to break my legs." And just like that, I let it slide.

I knew what it was like to be on the Bookie's bad side.

"It's your birthday, Herman. Celebrate, be happy you ain't in Ryker's or something." He had a point, just like Fred had made before. Instead of sitting in solitary, I was in a bar, having a brew, and could go for a walk any time I wanted. With the help of Trapster, the two of us had robbed an armored car the previous day, and I was currently sitting on $337,000 of bearer bonds back in my hideout. That in and of itself was something, since a few years ago, I had tried to collect a bounty on Trapster's head. But I hadn't, and then we worked together as part of the Sinister Syndicate without killing each other. When I needed someone to help tie up and keep the truck's guards busy while I cracked the safe, Trapster had been my only choice. I had to hold my nose while making it, but he had tied up the guards using that "glue gun" of his, and we got away quick and clean. So here I was, working on getting drunk, having more money then I had seen in a long time, and planning on using some of those funds on a hooker later that evening if the escort service decides to return my damn phone calls.

So what was the problem?

"You ever...just feel...I don't know, James, like you had the potential to just do more? Like, some great big score, or this huge heist?"

Under his red glasses, Speed Demon was giving me a confused look. Everyone wore their costumes when they came to the Bar. It identified all of us and made sure we knew who was coming in here to drink. No damn undercover officer was going to come in here in blue jeans and start asking questions about who pulled off the latest heist. My mask and my gloves were behind the bar, letting me drink without any problems. "Herman, you pulled off a big score. How much did you and Trapster get away with?"

"Nah, man, I'm talking bigger," I responded.

"What, like the time you held New York City ransom?" Speed Demon gave me a boisterous laugh. "Man, I remember that. I was in LA and I turn on the news, and there is it, Manhattan completely blacked out! And I'm trying to figure out how Electro pulled it off, but then Midtown starts spelling out your name and your ransom! That was priceless!"

"Yeah, it was," I acknowledged, "and then Spider-Man shows up and I don't get one red cent out of it. Now, if I had pulled the job off..." I get interrupted for a moment as, behind me, I could hear Trapster accuse Boomerang of cheating in that high pitched, sniveling tone of his. "...if I had pulled that job off," I continued after a moment, "I wouldn't be drinking here tonight. I'd be in Vegas, and if you guys made it there..." I trailed off for a moment, lost in a very pleasant thought.

"Dude, this is good enough for tonight," Speed Demon said. He clapped my shoulder in a friendly-for-him gesture. "If you think too big, you're gonna hurt yourself."

Tonight wasn't good enough. That was the problem. But I didn't want to drag my drinking partners down, especially since the final member of our drinking party hadn't shown up yet. So I just smiled and finished my brew, before ordering another one.

It went on like this for nearly an hour. The sun was just starting to vanish behind the buildings here in Lower Manhattan, and I was working on my fifth beer of the evening. Fred, refusing to drink American beer because, and I quote, "American beer is like slitting your wrists in the bathtub...they're both bleedin' close to water," was downing the rotgut that passed for whiskey. Speed Demon was on his twelfth beer and just starting to show their effects. Trapster? That man was smashed, and quietly mumbling under his breath about how, someday, he was going to pay me back for trying to kill him those years ago. I admit, the money had blinded me, but it was the only time I had come close to slipping. Besides, I had to keep telling him, I ended up not killing him, right?

"Alright, settle down," Demon said to the Bar, which currently consisted of the four of us and the barkeep. "I know Aleksei ain't here yet, but for all we know, the poor guy's tying up traffic down on the FDR right now." I crack a smile at the comment, I admit. "He ain't on the news, so we ain't gonna worry about him."

Demon got a fresh brew from the bartender, and held it up in the air. "Tonight...Herman Schultz turns 32 years old!" Boomerang gave me a grin and some applause, and Trapster pounded the bar with his beer bottle. "And we're the poor bastards he asked to come drink away his sorrows this evening. With his sorrows, it'll be a shitload of drinking!"

"Aw, he's rich, he shouldn't be frowning!" Trapster chuckled, even as he had his free hand on the bar to avoid falling ass-over-teakettle off his stool and onto the floor.

"He can't be that rich, I still got a damn bar tab!" The bartender eyed Speed Demon as the speedster kept talking. "But anyway, instead of running my mouth like I normally do, I'm gonna cut to the chase. Herman...the Shocker..."

Trapster laughed again, this time braying loudly. "The Shocker! Should have just named yourself Pinkstink!"

I was weighing if $337,000 was worth not capping the Trapster a few months back when Fred jumps in. "Can it, Peter," Boomerang growled from next to him. "Man's birthday, show him a bit of respect." Fred raised his glass of whiskey to Speed Demon. "Go on, James."

"Yeah, before someone interrupted me. Herman...the Shocker...32 years old...and one of the few among us who given it to Spider-Man as good as that freak's given to him. Just for that, we should be toasting you. But you're also our friend, our colleague...and the guy who buys the most rounds for all of us!" With a grin, Speed Demon raised his beer, and behind him, Boomerang and Trapster did the same. "To the Shocker, and may we be sitting in Vegas for his 33rd birthday with cold beers in one hand and something blonde and incredibly firm breasted in the other!"

"Here here, mate." Boomerang said, lifting his whiskey. We all down our drinks, the beer feeling good in my throat as I finish the entire bottle. At this point, I remember sitting there in the Bar thinking I was overthinking things. $337,000 in bonds, three friends saluting me with one on the way. Perhaps this was the best I could do, the alcohol was telling me, and I was nodding my head internally, agreeing with it. Fred put his drink back down on the bar, sliding it towards the barkeep for a refill. The whole time, he had been watching us with a wary eye, but he knew the four of us weren't going to bust the place us.

"Alright," the Australian said when he took his next drink, "let's get this poor sod his presents before we get too drunk to remember where we left them. James, you wanna run and..."

A loud 'WHOOSH' filled the Bar. The front door was banging shut on its hinges by the time my brain registered what had just happened.

"...grab 'em," Boomerang finished. "Christ, he's got a hair trigger."

"That's what his girlfriend said..." Trapster was smashed. Somewhere between Speed Demon toasting me and Boomerang making his request, he had finished his beer. Currently, he was trying to reach over the bar grab another. "...if he had one!" At this point, the barkeep was reaching for the baseball bat he kept under the bar. Rule #3 of the Bar with No Name. The barkeep got you your drink. You reach behind the bar, you're fair game. Two years ago, Mac Gargan (Scorpion then, Venom now) had tried to get a beer while chatting up Coachwhip. The barkeep broke two of his fingers with that bat before he even opened the cooler. When Gargan tried to go after the bartender, the entire clientele tossed him out, tail first. And his green ass (well, symbiote ass now) hadn't come back since.

"Whoa, I got this," I told the barkeep even I was already moving. "Come on, Peter, you know the rules." With Boomerang's help, I steadied Trapster back on his stool. "You need a few minutes between brews, man."

"I'm fine," Trapster replied. I didn't know you could slur those words, but he had found a way. "I'm fine...just need another beer, that's all."

"No, you really..."

"Aw, who are you to tell me what to do, Shhhhocker." The old man was staring at me, but the way he was swaying, I was probably one of three Shockers he was trying to focus on. "Washn't for me, you wouldn't have all thoshhhhhe bonds..."

"Think he's cut off, mate," Boomerang told the barkeep, who replied with a silent nod and moved away from the baseball bat. "Gonna move him to a table, Herman. Give me a hand?" I got off my stool to help him. The two of us picked Trapster on, one under each of his arms, and took him to the unofficial "passing out" table in the corner. His blood-alcohol level skyrocketed in the shot time we dragged him from the bar to the table, because by the time we threw him down in the chair, Trapster landed face-first on the table, sending peanut shells and a crumpled napkin bouncing away.

As my partner-in-crime started to snore on the table, Boomerang looked at me with a sincere expression. "A man needs to know his limitations."

The honest way he said it got a laugh out of me. "Yeah. Hope no one tries to screw with him. Think Peter's happy a job actually went RIGHT for once and just celebrated a bit too much." With a sigh, I shook my head, but I did have a grin on my face. "Happy birthday to me, huh?"

"Hey, mate, I wanted to take you to a strip club, but...you know...damn Giuliani." We laughed and were making our way back towards the bar when the door banged open again. Standing in front of me and Fred, with the dust trail evident on the floor, Speed Demon held a box out towards me.

"All you, man. Happy birthday, Herman." The box, about 3 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot was crinkled on one side, and packing tape ran all over it. And it was cold, like it had just come out of the freezer. I remember taking it and wondering how the hell I was going to open it. Boomerang came to the rescue, though. He whipped out one of his razorrangs and handed it over for me to use.

The guy caught a lot of flack for his choice in weapons over the years. In America, everyone assumed boomerangs were kids' toys, no different from yo-yo's or jacks. But what they forget is that the natives of Australia used them to hunt game. In Fred Myers' hands, his boomerangs ain't toys; they're deadly weapons, especially when the guy throwing them used to be a Major League pitcher. Right now, though, his weapon's serving as a packaging knife that I'm using to rip into the package.

"This one's from the two of us," Speed Demon said as I managed to get the outer layer of tape off "We were gonna split em, Boomerang and I, but figured you'd probably be around longer to enjoy them then either of us."

"That's what I told him," Boomerang told me in a low voice that Speed Demon could obviously hear. "But I honestly had no clue what to get you and just went in Dutch with James."

"HEY!"

I laughed at the standard Boomerang tactic (he uses it to avoid restaurant tabs, too) as I finally got the box open. I put all the cardboard and tape I had ripped away on the bar, along with the razorrang, before setting the box down next to it. I opened the flaps and gazed upon my birthday present...

"Happy birthday," Speed Demon told me brightly. "50 pounds of meat from Omaha Steaks."

Red meat stared back at me. Thick cuts of sirloin, some on the bone, some off, were packed tightly in the box, separated by layers of wax paper. "Holy..." I looked up at the two of them, and a smile was forming on my face. "You guys are just lucky I ain't a practicing Jew."

The two laughed heartily, and Speed Demon was saying "come on, let's see if we can get the grill in the back fired up..."

Then it all went to hell.


	3. First Encounters

The front door to the Bar with No Name swung open. The three of us turned to see who was joining the festivities. I was expecting our fifth to finally show up after running an hour late, but it could have been any one of the numerous shady clientele of the bar.

What we didn't expect was a guy covered in blood to come stumbling through the door.

"Jesus," Boomerang said as the door closed behind the guy. He stumbled forward, crashing into the bar and just barely staying upright. He had on a blue shirt that was dark on one side with a whole lot of blood, and some of it went down to his slacks, which had a large rip on the left thigh. That wound was definitely gushing blood, as a fresh red stream bubbled into the fabric when he hit the bar.

"Hel..." was all the guy got out before he fell away from the bar and landed face-first on the floor.

A few seconds passed. I was still holding the box of steaks, and Speed Demon and Boomerang were half-turned, looking at the guy on the ground. I remember the bar was silent for those seconds...

Until Trapster let out a loud snore.

For some reason, his sleep apnea broke the three of us out of our temporary stasis. I put the steaks on the bar and pushed between my two friends towards the guy. The bartender was leaning over the bar, staring down at the guy as I squatted down to check him out.

His breathing was ragged, but somewhat steady. His pulse was a little slow for my liking, however. "Come on, get this guy to a table," I found myself saying.

"What for," Fred asked.

"Because I want to see how bad he is before we patch him up and get him out of here. Hey," I said, motioning to the barkeep, "you got a first aid kit?" He nodded, and started walking to the far end of the bar. "Here, James, give me a hand, man."

Demon grabbed the guy's feet as I got his shoulders. We very carefully turned him over and lifted him off the ground. As we carried the guy past Boomerang, he stepped to the side and gave a low whistle. "Christ, Herman, it looks like a dog got to him." Up close, I could see that the fabric of his khakis had been torn away, not cut, and that a couple of buttons were missing from his shirt, along with several small swatches of fabric.

We laid him out on the table, and I gave him a quick once over. "Alright. Here's what we're going to do. I'm gonna patch him up. Fred, you grab the phone book and find out which hospital's closest. James, you're going to run him there and drop him off in the ER."

"Why would we do that?" It was almost in stereo, the way Boomerang and Speed Demon protested.

"Because if this guy doesn't get looked at, odds are he's going to die. And I think the last thing we need is someone croaking in this bar, or else the heroes ain't ever gonna let them set up shop again." I went to take the first aid kit from the barkeep, who had come out from behind the bar with a large white metal box in hand. But he waved me aside, and put the box down on the table. He opened it up and started to pull out gauze and wound pads. I just stepped back and let the man work.

Speed Demon joined me a second later. I looked over at him, about to ask him what in the hell could have happened to the guy...then I saw the black leather wallet in his hands. "You're kidding me, James. You ROLLED the guy?"

"Damn right I did. I wanted to make sure the guy has insurance before I drop him off somewhere. And..." He held up a wad of twenties. "...don't forget the co-pay"

I reached for the wad. "And don't forget YOU owe me twenty bucks yourself..."

A loud, high-pitched scream cut us off. "OH, GOD, HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!"

Maybe I'm just a sucker for a damsel in distress. Or maybe it was a scream I hadn't heard before. Sure, in my line of work, I've had women (and some men) scream when I show up to do the voodoo I do pretty well. But they're usually a cry for help that, in the Big Apple, they expect to be answered. By Spider-Man, by Cloak and Dagger, hell, even one time, the Sentry, when he swooped down from the sky and snagged a carjacker by lifting the freakin' car.

But this scream, though...it was primal. Like this person was seconds away from death.

I was moving past Speed Demon and a phone-book-perusing Boomerang by the time the scream ended. I had my uniform on (sans mask), but my gloves and boots were on the ground by my barstool. I didn't think to stop and grab them, and in the end, that fact almost got me killed.

The Bar was in a not-quite rediscovered block of Avenue D, so seeing a bright yellow school bus in the middle of the street caused me to stop in my tracks almost as soon as I was outside. It was parked across both lanes of traffic, one end nosed into a parked car on the right side of the street. The sun had set behind the low-rent apartment buildings lining both sides of Avenue D, so I couldn't make out anything inside the bus itself. But what I did make out...

"HELLLLLLP!"

...was the lady screaming for help. Hard to miss her, but, again, late evening, New York City public school bus stuck in Alphabet City vs. lady screaming for help in a rough part of New York City. Take away the screaming, and the school bus wins in terms of "what the fuck" factor 95 out of 100 times.

The lady was in the middle of the street, lying on her back. On top of her, another man was flailing away at her, trying to get a good grip on her. The top of her blouse, I could see, was ripped open, and she was barefoot. Her hands slapped and pushed at the guy attacking her, but he just kept grabbing and groping.

Ok, I may be a villain, but assaulting a lady...unless she's an Avenger or a member of the Serpent Society, it's pretty damn low, especially if she's a, pardon the term, "civilian." Now go a bunch of steps down on that Sliding Scale of Morality, and you'll find rapists. You ever hear the joke "even villains have standards?" Well, some of us do. In either case, assault, rape, in what technically amounted to broad daylight? Outside one of the few bars I could actually still drink at in this city?

"Hey, buddy, get OFF!" I charged towards the guy, barely aware that Speed Demon and Boomerang were behind me. They took a few hesitant steps towards the woman, probably confused at what the hell I was doing.

Once I got there, I grabbed the guy by the back of his flannel shirt's collar and just pulled him right off. Spinning in place, I tossed the guy away, towards the opposite side of the street. He staggered away and landed face first between a Buick and a Nissan. I looked down at the lady. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were wide, but she was registering me standing in front of her. After a beat, I extended my hand down towards her. "Lady, what the..."

Then the guy I had thrown away slammed into my side and clawed at my exposed neck.

Before we push on, I should take the time to explain a few things about me and what I can do. If you've seen me on TV, you've seen my...unique looking costume. Basically, for the first couple years of my criminal career, I wore this homemade costume made of really thick yellow quilt patches. It added a good bit of bulk, but it also ensured that I wouldn't kill myself from using my gloves.

Gloves first. Without bragging too much...I'm a fucking genius when it comes to engineering. I dropped out of high school, but that was because...well, odds are you've been to high school. It's fucking boring. Not the geometry and physics, mind you, but English and history. Who needs them? I got disruptive enough that I was asked to leave my senior year, and I bummed my way around for a few years, working in auto shops, fixing boats down on the docks, and doing the occasional stick-up and heist. I found out I had a knack for locks along the way, and spent some time with a crew in Lower Manhattan as a safecracker. And a damn good one, too. Went independent in a few months and made a name for myself. You ask anyone who the world's best safecracker is, and Herman Schultz's gonna come up with in five names.

That ended when I got arrested and thrown into General Population at Riker's.

Jail and I didn't quite agree. So I started looking for a way out. Now, I was a safecracker, but jailbreaker wasn't on my resume. Finesse went out the window, so I decided to blast my way through the gates. Now, in a great show of New York Department of Corrections bureaucracy, they assigned me to work in the machine shop of Riker's Island. Putting a safecracker in a machine shop was dumb enough, but...you know, genius at engineering? It took me five months to put together my first set of vibro-smashers and blast my way through the wall of the machine shop and right through the wall to freedom.

The concept is actually really simple. I push the thumb triggers, and the gloves project a concentrated blast of vibrating air at intense frequencies. The best way to describe it is like having several near-solid walls of pulsing air smash into you. Depending on how long I hold the triggers down, I can control how far, how intense, and how big the spread is on the blasts. I got five distinct levels set on the trigger, from "stiff punch" (level one) to "don't press your luck" (level three) and capping off with "ever see a parking meter get stuck through a telephone pole(level five)?" And because my blasts vibrate, they can wrack merry hell on physical structures, like buildings, bridges, tunnels...and, of course, human skin and bones.

The vibro-smashers I used to break out of Riker's were hastily jury-rigged together. Once I went to ground, I adjusted, tweaked, and fixed them. The first time I fired one properly, though...well, the initial test almost fucking killed me. So when you saw my yellow-and-brown suit, what you saw was me surrounding myself in quilting so I didn't blow my skin off while using my gloves. Stupid looking, but practical, save for the occasional nosebleed. The padded suit actually served me pretty well until Spider-Man realized all he had to do was wrap me up in his arms and point my hands away from him. That summer SUCKED in terms of cash flow.

Luckily, though, I shared a cell block on the Raft (which was a step up from Riker's. Better food, for one) with Unus the Untouchable. Guy was a flake, but he gave me an idea. When I broke out, I took my suit and shoved a whole bunch of contact plates for small shock units under the quilting. Throw in a couple of motion detectors, and anytime someone tries to grab me, they go off and deflect their hands away. Makes me impossible to take completely by surprise. And as an added benefit, thanks to a concept called "trip-hammer vibration," my hand-to-hand punches are about ten times a normal human beings in terms of power and impact.

So yeah. My suit lets me take a punch from Spider-Man (and the Thing, in one case) and my gloves let me make him take a punch from the Shocker, both from long-distance and in close quarters.

Alright, I tried to make the exposition as smooth as possible, so let's get back to my first rescue attempt of the night...

The guy slams into me. My suit deflects physical blows, like punches and chops, but if someone's just trying to bull rush me, they're gonna get through. Good luck trying to grab on, though. This guy's arms and hands are just bouncing off my back, but he manages to catch me where my hood's bunched up just below my neck, the tips of his fingers scraping over the skin for a second. It's enough to cause me to spin around and get ready to shove this fuck. "Hey man, ba..."

Then I got a damn good look at his face.

Yuppie, probably 25 years old, with a head of hair stiff with gel and an attempt at a beard barely described as "scruff." He had on a blue tie and matching shirt. And I could see his teeth through the hole in the right side of his face. It looked like a dog had locked down and torn away a good chunk of his flesh. Dried blood trailed down his cheek and his chin...to the much larger hole in the side of his neck. Forget a dog, it looked like a wolf had gotten a hold of him and tried to rip his throat off.

Kind of like what he was trying to do to me. His hands came up and grabbed at my throat. My response was to simply shove the bastard. I took a step forward, putting myself between this guy and the lady, who was sitting up on the ground now, watching what was going down. The guy staggered backwards, but kept his footing. He was staring at me the whole time, his eves not once leaving me. Before he really had his balance back, he had both arms raised and stumbled back towards me.

Persistent.

I decked him as soon as he was in range. I didn't have my vibro-smashers on, but years of lugging them around, along with wearing a heavily padded suit, gave me a decent right cross. I caught him right in the jaw, easily with the way he lumbered towards me without trying to defend himself. Small problem, though. It didn't stop him. The yuppie kept coming forward, moving towards me. Not the woman he had been attacking. Me.

I cocked my elbow back, and smashed the guy right square in the jaw wit it. The pressure pad underneath fired from the impact, adding just enough oomph. That sent the guy staggering again...right on top of one of the lady's shoes. I watch as the yuppie tripped over a medium-heeled red shoe and go spinning away, stumbling towards the cars parked on the opposite side of Avenue D. Somehow, he managed to end up between two of them, with just enough room between them for his body to fall forward in a clumsy ballet...

*THWICK*

His body was at a 45 degree angle to the street as he fell directly onto the thick metal bolt that sat on top of the fire hydrant on the curb. He jerked slightly for a moment, before his arms went limp and fell straight towards the ground. His legs went out from under him too. It took a few seconds for him to stop twitching, and then went perfectly still.

A shoe. I took out the first one with a god damn shoe.

At the time, though...seriously, who the heck accidentally kills someone with a shoe? And I was damn sure the guy was dead, because the way his body was, the bolt had to be the only thing holding it up...

"Herman..." Speed Demon zipped up, joining me in staring at the yuppie's body. "...what did you do?"

"I didn't mean to, James," I protested weakly. "The guy kept coming, so I elbowed him, and he tripped! How the hell was I supposed to know there was a fire hydrant there!" I had never killed anyone before. Sure, I had come close plenty of times, but always by accident (save of course for the "drunk-so-he-missed-all-the-fun" Trapster). Killing's a line I...thought I'd never cross. That all went out the window pretty quick as the night went on, but for right there and then, I was mortified.

"Calm down, man, calm down." Speed Demon put his hand on my arm, and seemed to actually make an effort to speak relatively slowly. "It was an accident, alright? I'll testify as much in court, self-defense or something..."

"Yeah, yeah...I mean I would have seen the damn hydrant if someone hadn't parked in front of it! There's laws against that kind of thing!"

"There you go, sheila." Behind the two of us, Boomerang had helped the woman to her feet. Fred never was one to pass up a chance to chat up a girl, even when his friend was staring at the corpse of what would have been his first murder. "You're ok now, I got you..."

"The kids!" The woman had broken out of her shock (I don't know if she even saw what had happened to the guy attacking her) and was pointing at the school bus. "They're going after the kids!" Speed Demon and I turned around...

"Oh, crap," we both said in stereo.

Two guys had pushed open the front door to the school bus. Now that I was paying attention, the forms of the passengers of the bus were evident. The screaming helped as well, a cacophony of high pitched cries tinged with fear.

Assault on a woman was bad enough. But kids? Even Boomerang, who had no problem offing a cop if they got in his way during a bank heist, wouldn't touch a hair on a kid's head.

I started heading that way as Boomerang was telling the woman "stay here, we'll get em off of the kids." A dark blue form whizzed past me, though. I had barely moved by the time Speed Demon had reached the bus. One guy had already gotten inside, but the other guy had one hand on the door, trying to pull himself up onto the first step.

Speed Demon was suddenly in front of him, one hand on the guy's chest. "Back off, pal..."

Now, James had some of the fastest reflexes in the world. But the guy (Knicks jersey, I remember), his hand came up so damn fast, and wrapped around Speed Demon's forearm. Before he reacted, the guy had bent down...

"MOTHER!" James yanked his arm back, rubbing at a spot on his costume. "Son of a bitch, you..." The guy leaned forward as James spoke, and I heard one of those things moan for the first time. I've heard it a lot since, but it still scrapes across my nerves every single time it's made. The only part of Speed Demon that's not covered by his costume is his mouth and nose. Moving at the speed of sound, you encounter wicked wind resistance, not to mention that a little pebble could feel like a .22 at that velocity. From where Boomerang and I stood, it looked like the guy was trying to bite at that part of James, the exposed skin of his cheeks and lips.

His profane cry earlier had me and Fred moving as quick as we could to help him out. Now Speed Demon reacted. I could just make out the blur as James zipped behind the guy, and put his hand on the back of his head...

WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!

The guy's head bounced off of the side of the school bus four times in rapid succession. Speed Demon stepped back and let the guy fall backwards. There was a big red splash seeping into the dent from the impact of the guy's skull, and a few drops were beginning to make trails down the yellow paint.

I noticed all of that out of the corner of my eye. I didn't even stop to think about how Speed Demon had probably killed that guy (Speed Demon kept a more...loose set of ethics, in the years I knew him), but bounded up the steps and into the bus.

The driver's side window was covered in blood, with most of it having pooled down in the sill by the time I had arrived. The keys were still hanging in the ignition, but the engine was off. I took all that in very quickly before turning towards the screaming kids. A dozen boys, maybe fifteen, and all the noise they were making, the bus was acting like an echo chamber. The guy was about halfway up the aisle, and most of the kids were crammed into the very back of the bus. When they saw me, the cries started switching from fear to...not joy, but if there was a way to sound relieved while still managing to piss your pants, their voices held it.

I moved as quickly as I could up the narrow aisleway. By the time I got there, the guy was reaching over one of the seats towards the closest kid. The kid couldn't have been more then ten, and instead of yelling, he was curled up under the window, knees pulled to his chest, sniffling slightly.

I grabbed the asshole (he was reaching for a little kid, far as I'm concerned, asshole) and pulled him back into the aisleway. A good stiff jab to the back of the head seemed to stagger him, that I had to reach out and grabbed the back of his shirt to make sure he didn't get any closer to the kids. "Get that back door open," I yelled. I had to repeat it a second time to make sure I was heard over all the screaming that was still going on.

"The back door's jammed," one of the older boys responded. "It's stuck!"

Christ. Speed Demon and Boomerang were still outside, and I wasn't sure if they could hear anything I yelled at them. I glanced over at the side windows, all of them shut, and none of them big enough for one of the kids to squeeze through. "Damn it...alright, I'm gonna keep him tied up! You kids crawl over..."

It would have been a pretty good plan, I'm sure. Something one of the capes would have thought up. Hold the bad guy in place, tie him up, as the innocent kids make their brave and miraculous escape. Heroic and dashing.

Then the guy pushed backwards against me, and I tripped over my own shoes.

The aisleway was narrow, so when this asshole rammed himself backwards, I lost my balance. Normally, not a problem, except that I banged against the side of one of the bus seats, and that twisted me around a bit, which caused my legs...you know, screw it, I'm not going to explain the comedy of errors that led to me lying on the floor of the bus with a drooling nutjob on top of me. Just accept that I did and let's move on.

So I go down, and the guy spins around and pounces on top of me. He's got several holes in his shirt, long greasy hair, and there's something dripping from his gaping mouth that I hope to God is spit (turns out, it wasn't) and he's pushing down, trying to get closer. It takes both hands on his throat to keep him upright, but I have no freakin' leverage down on the ground, and anytime I tried to kick or twist, I banged into the metal supports for the seats. The kids are still screaming, and I'm pretty sure by this point I have a nice stream of swear words going as well. "Come on, move! Start climbing over the seats!" Of course, they weren't moving, but I wasn't going to blame them. Get mad at them, yeah, but in their situation...

I was in the middle of cursing myself for leaving the vibro-smashers in the fucking bar when I hear a loud creaking sound, just before, through the gap between the seats and the guy's leg as he's straddling me, the back door of the bus suddenly rips on open. An Australian voice yells "COME ON, BLOODY MOVE IT," and it's enough to get them moving. On the bright side, I am keeping this asshole tied up, so the kids can scramble out the back.

"FRED!" I yell this without too much shame. "I'M GONNA NEED A HAND HERE!" The guy's still pushing, and snarling now. I get a good look at his shirt while trying to avoid whatever it was that he was dripping on me. Beneath a couple of the holes, I can barely make out what types of wounds are underneath. If the number of holes on his chest are indeed from what I think they are...

...someone tell me why he's on top of me, trying to do...something...to me...with five or six bullets in his chest?

"GET HIS HEAD UP, MATE!" I head Boomerang scream once the final kid is away. I push up, but the asshole's pushing right back down. I grit my teeth and lift his throat, slowly inching upwards as he's thrashing and shoving back...

"COME ON, HERMAN, GET HIS HEAD UP!"

With a bit of a snarl on my own part, I gave a good shove. As the guy's upper body got forced upwards, I could hear a familiar swishing sound...

With a wet squish, one of Boomerang's razorrangs embedded itself in the back of the guy's head. He went limp in my arms almost immediately, and I managed to shove him completely off of me. I scrambled back a few feet, looking at the sharp piece of curved metal sticking out of his skull. At the other end of the bus, standing just outside the door, Boomerang waved a hand. "HERMAN! You alright?"

I gave him a half-hearted thumbs up, before getting back to my feet and climbing out of the front of the bus. Speed Demon was waiting for me. I shoved down my urge to ask him why the hell he hadn't come on the bus after me, and instead asked another question. "What the hell did that guy to do you?"

"BIT me!" Speed Demon held up his forearm, which he was rubbing slightly. His costume was intact, but I could make out the indentation of teeth marks in the outfit. "He grabbed my arm and tried to fucking bite me!"

"One way to break a hold," I muttered. "Did he get you, James?"

"No," he replied. "Didn't break the outer layer." The two of us walked to the back of the bus, where Boomerang was waiting for us. He had climbed onto the bus to retrieve his weapon from the guy he had dropped, and was sitting on the edge of the aisleway, legs swinging slightly. "Christ," James said once we arrived, "this night went to hell in a hurry."

The emergency door was lying on the street. I had to step over it to stand in front of the Australian. Rubbing my face, I looked down at the door, and then at the jagged metal that had once been the hinges holding it to the bus. "Damn, Fred, how the hell did you get it open? Did you blow it up or something?"

"Mate, I didn't have a damn thing to do with it." He pointed over my shoulder. Turning, I saw that the woman I had helped earlier had gathered up the kids who had escaped the bus...

...and all of them were standing around the guy who I should have known would have been responsible for ripping apart the back of a school bus. The kids were all staring up at him with a bit of awe from his feat of strength, and the looks on their faces made me smile, relieved that the fifth member of our drinking party had finally made it.

"You're late, Aleksei. What the hell took you so long?"

Aleksei Sytsevich, aka the Rhino, held up a pink box, tied together with a white piece of string. "Sorry, Herman. I had to stop and get your birthday cake."


	4. I'd Like To Introduce the Band

Boomerang and Rhino.

I mentioned earlier, we're all drinking buddies, and Aleksei is one of the few people on this planet I'd call a friend. Fred comes close, but he's got a self-preservation streak that's left me hanging a few too many times.

Fred Myers, aka Boomerang, used to be a major league pitcher, and a damned good one too. Spent his entire childhood in Alice Springs, Australia, training and practicing and building up that arm of his. Once he got to the big time, though, he started taking bribes to throw games, and once the bigwigs got wind of it, they drummed him right out. Normally, that would have been the last the world heard of Fred Myers...save for the Secret Empire showing up and making him an offer.

Now, most villains have something happen to them that elevates them from "normal" to "super." Take Doctor Octopus (never, ever, EVER call him "Doc," by the way). He gets four metal arms fused to his body and becomes a master criminal. Or a guy like Hydro-Man, who can turn his entire body into water, the liquid equivalent of the Human Torch. And in the case of Rhino, he had a super suit bonded directly to his skin that turned him into a walking M-1 tank.

Guys like Boomerang, though...that's all natural. He never drank a serum, or got hit by lightning, or got a blood infusion from an irradiated cousin. He trained his ass off for years to get as good as he did at throwing a baseball. The Secret Empire recognized this, and said "hey, you want to come work for us? We think you can do something with that talent you've spent years building up." And Fred did.

I think that's why I get along with Fred, even if we've cut and run on each other throughout our criminal careers. Hey, I won't lie, I've left him twisting in the wind once or twice. But, like him, I did everything myself to become a villain. I built my gloves, I designed my suit, and I did it all by myself, the technical equivalent to spending your childhood throwing a baseball through a hollowed-out soup can. For all of Fred's flaws, he's a planner, someone who takes the time to think things out and not just break down the damn wall to rob a bank. I definitely respect that.

So the Empire outfits Fred with a stupid looking costume (the blue-and-purple motif I could stand, but adding those big boomerangs...then again, I ran around with a quilt for a good chunk of my career) and a whole bunch of neat toys. He has his standard boomerang, which can give you a damn nasty bump on your head. Then he got his razorangs, boomerangs with edges so sharp, they'll give you a nasty wound INSIDE your head, as the sap on the bus found out. Screamerangs. Gasarangs. Bladerangs...think a flying buzzsaw. And shatterangs, with enough explosive force to knock over an SUV. Remember how I said earlier that most people hear 'Boomerang' and think of a kid's toy? Doctor Octopus has four cybernetic arms fused to him that can throw around a Mack truck. Electro can shoot lightning bolts from his hands and not break a sweat.

Boomerang? He...throws stuff?

That normally lasts until they see him in action, using his jet boots (supplied by Justin Hammer, who also upgraded his weapons and keeps him stocked. They also fixed that damn suit of his to not look so stupid) to fly through the air and nail people from 30 yards away, putting one of his "toys" dead smack between the eyes.

It's impressive.

Of course, you want impressive, watch Rhino at work. Give him a head of steam and he'll knock an SUV clear into New Jersey.

Aleksei was a poor Russian immigrant who came to America alone, no skills, no family here stateside, nothing. Naturally a big guy, when one of the Eastern European syndicates needed a collection agent, or a bouncer, or just someone to beat the crap out of someone, Aleksei was the guy they went to see. He wasn't too bad at it, either, which is probably why that same group signed him up for their attempt to create their own "Super Soldier," a Captain America for the syndicate. They took Aleksei and bonded this superstrong polymer to his skin. I don't know the exact specifics (I'm an engineer, damn it, not a polymer scientist) but it gave him super strength, speed, and stamina. The horns on top of his suit were an afterthought, but they're sharp enough to cut through enhanced steel. He acted at the mob's enforcer for a long time, until he crossed paths with the Hulk and got his ass kicked by the jolly green giant. That would have been the end of it, but just like the Secret Empire found Boomerang, the Leader found Aleksei. Next thing you know, Rhino's stronger, faster, quicker, and going toe-to-toe with the Hulk...and holding his own. They've crossed paths several times since, and while the Hulk always wins, he has to know, somewhere in his brain, that he's been in a hell of a fight.

Rhino's big, he's fast...and he's not too bright.

Now, anyone calls him "retarded" and I'll level-four them right in the balls. But let's be honest, my friend ain't joining MENSA anytime soon. The Leader bombarded him with gamma radiation and, making him damn near invulnerable...and he also runs into things head-first. Don't ask him to figure out the sine/cosine of an angle.

He loves to break things, and he's always for hire to anyone who'll pay him. For all that, Aleksei's a gentle soul and treats people with kindness. I saw him smash through an entire mansion of Italian goons to rescue the daughter of a Serbian mob boss, and he (and me. Two-man job, but he did all the heavy lifting) wrecked the place. Thugs thrown every which way, three walls knocked down, and I'm damn sure the guy owning the place had it bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch. The mafia princess, though, he kept apologizing to her for the noise as I'm blasting away anyone getting close to us, and when he turned the girl back over to her father, Aleksei sat there and waved goodbye as they drove away. Tonight, he was late to the Bar With No Name because he had to stop at a little Russian bakery to pick up a birthday cake for me. Two days prior, he and Wonder Man had smashed up a good bit of Hell's Kitchen during a brawl, and tonight he shows up with a cake.

Fred? Always looking for the angles, the perfect place to put a curveball. The man went in dutch on a stolen box of steaks for my birthday, for Christ's sake.

And these are the guys I'm stuck while the world goes to hell.

X

Marie and I made it to Houston Street without any major problems. This part of Lower Manhattan was pretty clear of those things...

Zombies.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and throw out the 'z' word now. Zombies. The walking dead. I'll go into detail in a minute, but in case you haven't figured it out by now, all over the world, the dead were getting back up and going after the living. For now, that's all you need to know.

Anyway, we had a couple blocks to go from 10th Avenue to Houston Street. There was a few of those things shambling around the streets, but none of them got close enough for me to worry about. Four nights had given me a solid grasp on when to use my gloves and when to just pass on by the other side. Marie was pretty brave about the whole deal. Once we started going across 9th, she was trotting along with me instead of being pulled along. I heard her gasp a few times when she saw a zombie, but I just kept her hand squeezed in my glove and made sure we were moving forward. She didn't pester me with questions, or ask me where we were going, or otherwise do anything but keep her head down and her mouth shut.

ConEdison had kept the power on during the "epidemic," as the news kept calling it. So as I glanced toward the Battery, I could see a lot of the taller buildings still had their lights on. Nobody was home down that way, however. The commercial district around Ground Zero had emptied that first night, with everyone fighting to get home to their families and loved ones even though the government had told everyone, initially, to stay behind closed and locked doors no matter where they were. Yeah, that worked. The phrase "mad panic" would barely describe what happened all across the Big Apple. The commercial and industrial districts, which I did my best to stick to, were mostly abandoned. Any time anything crisis-like happened in New York City, the place erupted as people tried to grab whatever they could. Iron Man and Captain America throwing down in Brooklyn had led to people grabbing Blu-Ray players, cell phones, laptops here in Manhattan. When the Hulk showed up and started tearing apart Manhattan, I made a relative fortune selling the emergency food and water in my hide out to a couple of Lehman Brothers bankers.

Now, though...the first night, people had packed the streets, and the networks showed stores getting gutted in between showing people getting gutted. By the second night, the zombies were snacking on the looters. After that, only the really desperate or fucking crazy stepped outside.

Aside from the burning building back on 10th, and a few car crashes, this part of Manhattan could have passed for any typical night. The normal sounds of traffic and sirens, though, had been replaced with the occasional burst of gunfire, with concentrated staccatos coming from Midtown, probably from the S.H.I.E.L.D. cordons that were set up around Central Park, the biggest (and from what I had heard, one of the few left functioning) rescue station in the city.

So why wasn't my ass heading up that way?

Because, from the TV, there were thousands of those ghouls pushing against the barricades surrounding the park

No way in hell was I going to try to lead everyone through those things. What I was doing was keeping everyone safe, secure, and non-infected, and I wasn't going to change horse in mid-stream.

There were a few fallen bodies scattered around Houston Street Station. Most of them showed signs of blunt trauma directly to the head, with big red splotches staining the pavement and sidewalks. Messy as anything, but when Rhino stomps that big foot directly onto their craniums, it put those things down for good. The steps leading down were clear of the ghouls. I turned to Marie at the top of the steps, and pointed downwards. She gave me a puzzled look, stealing a glance towards the underground station. "Rescue station down there?"

I shook my head. "No...a friend of mine will take you to one. He's waiting for us."

"In the metro? But those..."

Before she could continue, a moan came from nearby. I didn't take the time to figure out where, what, and why, I just grabbed Marie by the hand. "Move," I said in a harsh, quiet register, "the longer we're up here, the more likely those things will find us." I pulled her along, almost causing her to lose her balance. Two flights of steps led to the pedestrian area. The cash machine in the corner had been ripped open, and the messaging system was running the same message it had for the past three nights. "ALL STATIONS ARE CLOSED. NO TRAINS ARE RUNNING AT THIS TIME." Scattered on the floor was a mass of twenty dollars bills, bus transfers, and several briefcases and purses.

We both heard the moan again, accompanied by a shuffling noise. Whatever was up there was making its way towards the top of the steps. I looked over at Marie, who was staring back at me with widened eyes. She wasn't shaking, but she knew what was up there, and what it might mean if it saw us.

I put a finger to my mask before gently guiding her away from the steps. The tunnel leading to the station platforms was too far away. If we made a run for it, there was a chance that whatever was up there could hear us, and might decide to come investigate. And there was also a chance it might see us, which meant that it would decide to investigate, and probably bring a whole bunch of friends with it...

There was a little niche, between two Metrocard machines. I pointed to it and told Marie, "hide. Go!" She moved a second later then I had ordered, but she made her way over. I winced at every slap her shoes made against the tile floor. Myself, I moved to the steps again, pressing against the wall at the bottom. Out of the sight of the steps. But in line of the sight to the rounded security mirror that was placed on the side of the stairwell, perfectly situated for commuters to see if any nefarious types were camping out. I pressed flat against the wall, back first, and stood rock still. The shuffling was easily audible, and it wasn't more then a few seconds before the shuffler shuffled into view. I couldn't make out too many details via the convex mirror, but by the way it limped, and slowly turned in place, anyone would know it was a zombie.

And it was looking for me. Or Marie. Or any other living human being.


	5. Oh Crap

"How you want your steaks done, Aleksei?"

"Medium, please."

"Four medium steaks," I told my guests, "coming right up."

Rhino sat on the couch I had designed for him. Combining the finest in illegally obtained Swedish furniture and long-lasting American workmanship, I had jammed together an Ikea futon and a Craftsman workbench to give him a place to rest his bones without having to worry about crashing through to the floor. I flipped the steaks over on the grill, searing the edges, as the three of us watched the breaking news on my flatscreen TV.

"Jesus," Boomerang said, "it's everywhere." The map of the United States was covered in red dots. Each one represented a report of assault, murder, or homicide that had been attributed to people acting like the mooks we had encountered outside the Bar with No Name. Every state had a dot somewhere inside its borders, with the majority of indicators clustered around the big cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Dallas...

"We're getting word now from our London bureau..." The talking head, with his perfectly coifed hair and $1000 suit, held a hand to his earpiece for a moment. "...and we have confirmed, attacks by the affected individuals are taking place in the United Kingdom. London, Birmingham, and Belfast are reporting..."

The three of us were currently sitting in the warehouse serving as my current hideout. A few months ago, my old place of refuge had been compromised. A water main had broken on 18th Avenue, right above the abandoned subway station I had occupied for the previous few weeks. The water poured right into my workshop, and I barely managed to save most of the tools and components. I vacated right before the New York Water guys showed up with nearly everything, but that still left me without a roof over my head.

After spending a few days driving a moving van around New York City trying to find a new place, I got lucky. A couple months back, the Punisher had gotten a hold of Phineas Mason, aka the Tinkerer, and stabbed him in the back. Bastard left the guy paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Phineas put the word out that he was looking to get rid of his current hideout and wanted to unload it on someone "worthy." Getting to him took a big of roughhousing, as there were a ton of supervillains looking for a new hideout in the wake of the whole superpower registration mess. After beating off some of the competition (last I heard, Cyber had it out for me after I knocked out of his arms out of joint), I made it to Tinkerer and made him an offer. I'd help him do whatever modifications he needed to his wheelchair, but more importantly, I'd help him move all of his gear from his old hideout to his new one. Apparently, no one even thought to ask the guy in the wheelchair if he needed a hand with anything, but just offered him money, more money, and even more money. The guy supplies more weapons then anyone (save Justin Hammer and Madame Menace) and is rumored to have a pipeline to Doctor Doom. Money was the last thing he wanted. The old man just wanted a hand with the stuff he couldn't do anymore.

It took three days of lifting boxes, loading trucks, unpacking parts, and welding a barrel and bullet chamber to his wheelchair, but once it was done, the Tinkerer handed me the keys and the security codes to this place.

Once, this neighborhood had been a warren of abandoned and empty warehouses, used primarily by the Mafia for after hours clubs and the occasional body disposal. Over the past few years, most of TriBeCa has turned into block after block of trendy loft apartments and hip little shops. They missed a few warehouses along the way, or the mob paid off someone to not notice them. This place used to be an Import/Export company for some Sicilian concern before they got swept up in the RICO purges of the late 80's, and the building boom stopped a few blocks away in the 90's. It's in the middle of a nearly-abandoned industrial park, about a block from the water. The other warehouses, I don't think I've seen anyone go inside or out of them in the few months I've been here. Sure, someday some real estate company was going to notice a couple blocks of wasted industrial space they could turn into the latest maze of boutiques and coffee houses. Until then, though, this place was all mine.

About 3/4ths of the warehouse was filled with shipping crates. Phineas had set up a couple of traps and an escape hatch in the maze of boxes, and I added a few of my own as well. In case Spider-Man or some other hero broke in here, my plan was to make a run for it, and hope the traps held them off long enough for me to make a hasty exit. The traps aren't too complex, just flash-bangs, a couple of contact panels like the ones in my suit, and tripwires to send anyone coming after me sprawling right on their face. The escape hatch is inside an old Wells Fargo shipping container, and it leads down to a small underground garage that intersects with a storm drain, and that intersects with a small access road that'll get me the hell out of Dodge.

Of course, I had my workbench and a whole bunch of equipment and parts stashed away there too, but over the past few months, I've actually managed to make a little living area in one corner. It ain't the Upper West Side, but I got a bed, a stove with built-in grill, a table, a couple of couches, a TV (60" flatscreen, with cable, and the only thing in here I actually obtained legally), and a computer with wireless Internet. Just as good as an apartment, and rent-free too.

I pulled the steaks off of the grill and put them on plates. Rhino and Boomerang had beers, so I grabbed one from the mini-fridge before bringing everything over to them. "Here you go, guys."

"Thanks, Herman." Rhino's plate had two steaks on it, and he picked one up with his bare hand and started tearing into it. A bit of bloody juice ran down his chin as he chewed. "Damn, these are good."

"Glad you like it." I sat down on the couch next to him and starting cutting my steak as we all watched the TV. Speed Demon had left us back at the Bar with No Name, following through on his promise to run the guy who had staggered in all bloody to the hospital. He said he'd meet back up with us later.

I remember, at that point, that I was treating what had happened to me earlier tonight with a weird sense of calm. You gotta understand, we've seen some strange stuff here in New York City. This is a city where mutants battle symbiotes on a weekly basis, where demons can step into Central Park and get beaten back to Hell by Captain America singlehandedly, and where you can get attacked by your alien doppelganger during an attack on Avenger's Mansion in the morning and be having a beer during early afternoon happy hour.

Around here?

Strange is normal.

So even though there's a whole bunch of people, all over the world, who are going around attacking other people, that's not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the guy I killed. And the guy Speed Demon killed. And the guy Boomerang killed.

"Justifiable," Boomerang said when I brought it up. He sat down on a nearby easy chair, sipping from his American beer with a grimace. "Mate, they were going after a group of schoolkids. You ain't gonna find a jury in the Tri-State area who'd convict you after you saved a group of kids from those guys."

"Yeah, Herman," Rhino added. He had finished his first steak, and was slowly working his way through the second one, appearing to savor the taste of every bite. "They might even see you as a hero or something," he said good-naturedly.

"Good luck with that," I responded. "I can see it now. 'SHOCKER MOLESTS CHILDREN, KILLS WOULD-BE RESCUER'. Damn Daily Bugle..."

Aleksei gently swatted me on the back. I could feel my contact-panels go off with the gentle impact. "Don't worry. No one reads that rag anyway." I joined Boomerang in giving a chuckle to that comment.

The news was the same for the next half-hour or so. A couple of reports popped up, describing incidents in Tokyo, Sydney, Mumbai, and Windhoek. It was all second-hand, however. Testimonials from a doctor in Bogota a hospital about how someone with a slit throat came off the gurney to come after him. A video from Oslo of a multi-car accident, and the driver of the vehicle, engulfed in flames, pulling himself out from behind the wheel of his truck to lunge after a would be rescuer. And, played from Youtube on CNN, the victims of a homicide bomber in a Kabul marketplace getting back to their feet, limbs missing, chests blown open, stumbling towards the cameraman.

"Herman," Boomerang asked as we watched the crowd panic, several people falling victim to the burned and charred forms, "this can't be a virus, can it? It's spread all over the bloody world in, what, an hour?"

"Little longer then that, but yeah. Most viruses I know, even weaponized ones, they don't work this fast."

"Then what the hell is going on?"

I found myself leaning forward, studying the TV a bit closer. "Magic, maybe? Perhaps another alien invasion?" Having been posed a puzzle, my mind had started to study it. I was poking around the edges, probing, listening for some part to fall into place. That's how my mind tends to work when it comes to a problem. I treat it like a combination or a tumbler lock, and try to slide the right pieces into place. It's one of the reasons I'd go so long between jobs. Every angle had to be covered, and it had to be done with a minimum of innocent bloodshed. Eventually...click. It would all fall into place.

This time...nothing was coming to mind. This was something that I had never seen before. People who should have been unconscious, or even dead, were shrugging it off...

The tumblers didn't fall into place. My mind didn't make that connection. Or maybe it just didn't want to.

"Hey, guys." Rhino pointed to the TV. The talking head, still maintaining his perfect haircut in the middle of this crisis, was talking about breaking news. "They're gonna have a press conference or something." The deskbound anchor mentioned that the first official word from the federal government was going to come any minute now. CNN cut from the anchorman to an empty podium with a single microphone set up on top. We'd all seen it thousands of times before, but it was the tag they put on the bottom that got my attention.

"LIVE – S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK CITY."

"...in a few minutes, we'll be getting an official statement from the United States Government's Department of Health and Human Services regarding the wave of violence that had swept the country. Also in attendance will be Colonel Nick Fury, current head of S.H.I.E.L.D, and Ms. Marvel, the leader of the Avengers, and they will be making brief statements on the situation at hand..."

"The Avengers? SHIELD? This is big, Herman," Rhino said after he finished his steak.

"Well yeah, Aleksei, this is world-bloody-wide," Boomerang retorted. "You're probably gonna get the capes up there, tellin' everyone to remain calm, this will be under control soon, and above all else, don't pay any attention to the lasers and burning buildings and Iron Man throwing Captain America through a window."

Rhino stared at Fred for a second. "You think they're gonna start fighting again? I thought Cap surrendered last summer."

"Oh, Christ, Aleksei..." Fred laughed. "Didn't mean it like that, mate. Never mind." He finished off his bottle of beer, and after disposing of it in the trash can with a perfect skyhook, Boomerang's voice turned serious. "Alright, mates. Here's what I'm thinking." He leaned forward on his chair, looking at the two of us. "We take a page out of Herman's book, and go find us a supermarket. Between the three of us, we clean the place out of water and food, bring it back here, and just wait for the desperate fat cats to use all that bailout money to stock up buying our overpriced goods."

I nodded half-heartedly. It was a good plan. Selling horded goods had made me a lot of money during several previous disasters. On the other end of the couch, though, I could see Rhino shaking his head. "I don't like that idea, Fred."

"Why not! Solid plan, worked for Herman here," the Australian said as he nodded in my direction, "and if we go now before there's a run on stuff, we can make a killing and keep our exposure down to a minimum. Let the heroes do all the heavy lifting while we sit here and play black market."

"I don't like that idea, Fred," Aleksei repeated. "Taking the money of rich people is fine by me, but what if someone shows up at the store who needs water or food, but it's all gone because we took it?"

"Screw em, they should have moved faster," Fred replied.

Rhino's eyes narrowed a bit at the Australian. "No, Boomerang," he rumbled, a bit of bass in his voice.

"Christ...I didn't think you'd take it so seriously, Rhino. Alright, alright...alright, how about this? We take...we take the stuff, but we leave half of it on the street, right? Anyone who wants to grab it for free, they can, alright? They don't have to pay the supermarket, and odds are the rich guys ain't gonna be street level anyway. How's that sound to you?"

My grey-skinned friend nodded. "That'll work." I could help but shake my head. There was no way just the three of us could have come close to cleaning out a whole supermarket anyway. But that was Aleksei for you. More then a lot of villains I knew, he was someone who tried to look out for anyone innocent, anyone who was in his way by accident. Get in his way, and Rhino would run you over before you could blink. Fall in his way? He'll pick you up, put you to the side, and get right back to smashing things.

"Alright, so where's the nearest super..." Boomerang was going to say more, but he got distracted, as the principal players in the press conference made their appearance.

Yep. Right there in glorious high-definition, the best pair of spandex covered knockers in the business.

I remember some guy in a suit, and of course Colonel Nick Fury would end up dominating the whole show in a little bit. At the very beginning, though...blonde haired, blue-eyed, and looking like she could kick anyone's ass, all of our attention was on the statuesque leader of the Avengers, Ms. Marvel, standing next to Colonel Fury behind the podium.

"That, guys," I said, pointing to her. "Right there, next year, my birthday. I want that, or as freakin' close to it as you can get."

"Forget that, mate, I'll be cutting in line ahead of you!" Boomerang whistled as she turned to observe the crowd of reporters, stretching a bit in her uniform. "Seriously, look at those damn legs. Woman would break me in half and I'd smile the entire time. Hell, I'd bet she could probably crack Rhino open and give him a whirl."

"I don't think she could, Fred." A few seconds of silence passed before I saw a smirk appear on the big guy's face. "But if she wants to try, I wouldn't tell her no."

By the time we had stopped laughing, the suit had been speaking for a few seconds. "...we won't be answering many questions at this time, because we still don't know what exactly we're up against. But we will release what information we have." The guy looked nervous, coughing slightly, holding the sides of the podium tightly with both hands. I'd seen that look before. I've lost track of the times I've seen that look before. A look like that, a guy acting that way? He doesn't have your money, and he's about to spin you a tale of utter bull.

"We have confirmed reports, ladies and gentlemen, of an epidemic of mass murder that is being committed, here in the United States and around the world, by an army of unidentified assassins. These attacks are taking places in villages and cities, in rural homes and suburbs with no apparent pattern or reason for these slayings. It appears to be a sudden general explosion of mass homicide. Eyewitnesses say that they are ordinary looking people, and some say that these attackers appear to be in a kind of trance. As of this moment, SHIELD has been mobilized to assist local and state law enforcement agencies, and several states are preparing to call up their National Guard units as well. The Avengers, as well, have been called upon to assist during this time of crisis."

"Christ...after the whole registration mess, they're going to the Avengers so soon? This must be huge," I muttered. Boomerang waved a hand to keep me quiet as the guy continued his spiel.

He was staring directly into the camera, reading off the teleprompter in a neutral tone, save for the occasional cough. "The official word, at this hour, is for private citizens to stay inside behind locked doors. Do not venture outside for any reason until we can determine, for certainty, the nature of this crisis. Keep listening to radio and television for special instructions. If you are at your place of employment, we urge you to stay there and not make any attempts to get to your homes. We repeat, the safest course of action at this time is simply to stay where you are. The President has called for a meeting of his Cabinet to deal with this epidemic of murder that has seized the world, and will convene within the hour. Members of his Cabinet will be joined by officials of the FBI, Homeland Security, SHIELD, and military advisors."

He looked away from the teleprompter. "Ms. Marvel and Colonel Fury have statements as well, but I will try to answer any questions I can."

And the reporters exploded.

Now the poor guy looked overwhelmed. Sitting there talking about a problem is one thing. Having twenty or thirty of the media's most rabid in your face, screaming a question that you have no clue what the hell the answer is...it's like saying "don't worry, I'll handle the customers when we rob the bank" and then having the damn Black Knight kick in the front door and charge you while screaming "FOR CAMELOT!" All the poor schmuck could do was point to one of the reporters. "Mr. Jones, do you have any idea what caused this outbreak of murder?"

"Um...at this time, we can't say for sure, but we have several theories we are looking into..."

The reporter cut him off. "Is this the precursor to some kind of worldwide alien invasion?"  
"I...I can't speculate for sure." The same reported tried to shout out another question, but the guy, Jones, pointed to one in the back, this one a female.

"Mr. Jones, does the mobilization of the National Guard units in several states mean that we're possibly under some sort of military attack, maybe by a bioweapon of some sort?"

"Uh, these attacks have occurred around the world, and as I said, the Guard is being mobilized to help assist local law enforcement in keeping the roads and railways open..."

"That bloke is in way over his head." Boomerang spoke from back near the "kitchen" area. He had popped open another beer, grimacing as he took a sip of the weak lager. "Seriously, why the hell would you send him out there, knowing the poor buggers going to get eaten alive?"

I watched as Jones wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Probably so the government can show they're doing something about this. Making the public thing it's all going to be ok once they figure out what's going on. Plus, the news ain't showing the footage of those guys while this guy's up there..."

After a few more questions, one of the reporters, who hadn't spoken yet, calmly raised her hand. Jones nodded to her. "I'd like to address this question to Colonel Fury. Colonel, can we ask how SHIELD is involved in all this? Is your organization taking the point in this crisis?"

The old war hero stepped to the podium. Where Jones was unsure and unsteady, this guy was a damn rock. "As of right now, SHIELD is mobilizing on a national level to assist the FBI and the Department of Defense in their handling of this problem," he growled. "Units across the country are assisting in keeping the American citizen safe from these attackers, as well as providing logistical support while we try to figure out what exactly is going on."

"If I may interrupt, Colonel?" Ms. Marvel stepped closer to the podium, allowing the mics to pick her voice up clearly. "The Fifty State Initiative is also currently mobilizing to provide assistance during this crisis. The call has been put out, and all registered heroes are reporting to their posts."

"Ms. Marvel, what kind of support will the Initiative be offering," the blonde reporter questioned.

"Aside from providing any logistical support we can, we will also be on the lookout to ensure certain elements do not attempt to take advantage of the current situation to stir up their own mischief." She leaned closer to the microphone, his voice lowering in tone as she spoke. "If they do, then we have been authorized by the Secretary of Defense to deal with them immediately, and with the full extent of the Initiative's authority. But hopefully, that won't be a problem."

Us three got quiet at that statement. It was the forcefulness in her voice. Fifty teams of super powered individuals on active alert, apparently with government sanction to beat guys like us into the ground...

"And that's why that had this press conference." I leaned back in the couch, smirking to myself. "Not just to reassure people the government's trying to do something about the people walking around killing other people, but that there isn't going to be anyone like us trying to take advantage..."

"Forget that, "Boomerang snorted. "Guys like Hawkeye are gonna have enough on their hands to worry about me grabbing a few cases of bottled water from a damn Walgreen's."

"That's because you're a bleeding idiot, Fred." I'm kidding, I'm kidding," I quickly apologized when I realized the man was holding a glass projectile in his hand. "But the standard criminal, he'll see it and stay the hell out the streets, thinking that Spider-Man or Hawkeye's gonna show up as he's lifting a couple of Bluetooths from the Radio Shack on the corner."

"Yeah, but where does that leave us, mate?"

I was standing up, getting ready to pull my mask back down over my face. "It means we don't got too long to rob that superma..."

WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!

"Attention, attention, containment breach in laboratory number 4."

Our attention snapped right back to the TV. Ms. Marvel was still at the podium, but now she, like Mr. Jones and the other reporters, were all standing there, craning their necks with confused looks on their faces. All except Colonel Fury. As flashing emergency lights began to rotate on the ceiling of the room they were holding the press conference in, the guy was already pulling out his pistol and checking the slide. "You stay here and keep everyone calm," the microphone picked up his statement to Ms. Marvel. She nodded, and while she held up her hands, Fury turned and started walking away, towards a door on the wall behind them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm, I'm sure whatever it is, SHIELD will get it under control in a few moments..." I don't know if anyone was listening to her, though. Mr. Jones's face, I could see, had gone white. Completely drained, pants-crapping white. A few reporters seemed to pick up on the change in his demeanor. Some of them took the chance to pepper him with more questions.

"Mr. Jones, are we under attack?"  
"Is it some of the affected, Mr. Jones?"

"Ms. Marvel, are we safe here?"  
"As I said, SHIELD will get this under control quickly," the Avengers' leader responded. "There are guards at every door, and I'm sure Colonel Fury..."  
I admit, at the time, I was watching Ms. Marvel intently. Her having her arms up, hands out, trying to exude calm and confidence, was doing wonders for her rack. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Fury leaving the room through the open door...and something was following him, double-time.

Someone, specifically. It took me a few seconds to realize who it was, and what they were carrying on their shoulder. I grabbed the remote control and quickly flipped up a few channels.

"The hell, mate?"

"The guy from Fox News is following Fury." I flipped past CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News, all of which were showing Ms. Marvel from different angles. But when we landed on Fox News, we cut from her to the broad back of Nick Fury.

The Colonel was stalking down a metal hallway. It was instantly recognizable to anyone who had ever been in an underground lab, a research facility, or a HYDRA base. Seriously, for the longest time I swore thought there was a company out there making pre-fabricated hallways for secret underground complexes. The emergency lights in here was flashing red, spinning in their plastic cylinders. Fury must have been really, really focusing on what was happening, because the cameraman was almost right on his ass, but he didn't notice, or if he did, he really didn't care. The cameraman was moving quick, and keeping his mouth shut as well. He just followed Fury down to the end of the hallway.

Once there, Fury turned to the right, and that's when I heard the footsteps. A whole bunch of them. Barreling down the hallway towards him was a SHIELD agent. She had an automatic weapon in her hand, submachine gun by the look. When she saw Fury, almost immediately, I'm talking "oh-crap-it's-the-boss" speed, she skidded to a stop. The woman actually sketched off a salute before Fury waved his hand at her. "What the hell's going on? We got a breach? Daniels, report."

"Sir," the woman replied. She had managed to catch her breath, and was doing a damn good job of speaking clearly and evenly. "We were standing guard outside the lab when we heard screaming and a weapons discharge. When we headed inside...sir, when we got inside, Dr Beinmann was attacking Sergeant Coleman, along..." She paused in her sentence, eyes narrowing. Daniels was looking directly into the camera, realizing who was standing behind Colonel Fury. "Um, sir..."

"Daniels, what happened to Coleman!"

The barking question from Fury snapped her attention right back to the Colonel. "Sir, the scientist was attacking Coleman...along with the specimen, sir."

"Along with the specimen?" Fury's voice rose in volume, building in anger too. "And why the hell are you out here? The entire lab should be in quarantine right now because of the alert!"

"Sir, the airlock doors didn't shut. McKenzie and Gordon are back there standing guard, sir, and sent me to find to get backup there as soon as possible."

"There should already be a full containment team on standby in case this happened!" Daniels started to protest, but Fury waved her down. "It ain't your fault, Daniels, it's the damn budget..."

The sudden sound of automatic gunfire cut through the air. Instantly, he was on the move. "Damn it! Come on." Fury pushed past the woman heading back down the red-lit hallway in the direction she had come. But instead of falling immediately fell in step behind the Colonel, Daniels turned to the cameraman. "Sir, this is a restricted area, you need to le..."  
"DANIELS, MOVE IT!"

Christ. They don't call him the Howling Commando for nothing. Fury's yell would have blown out my speakers under the right circumstances, if his order to Daniels was an indication. Daniels spun in place, and double-timed it to where Fury was. He was speaking into a communicator as he walked. "Command, Fury, I want a full team down in Lab 4 ASAP, as in yesterday, full weapons, full armor, Delta protocols."

The cameraman kept pace as well.

I was on an episode of "Cops" once, when the show was focusing on Code: Blue, the NYPD SWAT team dedicated to taking down supervillains when the capes aren't around. A bank job had taken longer then I had expected, and by the time I walked out, ten officers and a cameraman were sitting outside waiting for me. Getting past the Code: Blue guys was a cakewalk, but as I'm running down the street, holding two duffel bags full of cash, the only guy managing to keep up with me? The damn cameraman! Hauling down the block, keeping that damn light on me the entire time!

I had to admit, though, throwing a level-two that sent him into a pile of garbage bags? Not a bragworthy career highlight, but one of my personal favorite moments.

I remember all three of us were silent at this point in the evening. Something had escaped containment at SHIELD HQ, and Nick Fury was going to take charge and deal with a "specimen" directly. It had to be a guy like the ones we had tangled with earlier. What else could it be? Ok, maybe some kind of parasite, or symbiote thing that possessed or infected human beings and made them crazed psychopaths who could take a massive beating...

There's a Sinister Six joke in there somewhere. Find it yourself.

It takes a couple more turns, and then Fury and the female agent were standing in front of an airlock. Fury took one look at the structure before giving an inappropriate curse. "Why are both of these doors open? They should have closed when the alarm went off!" The gunshots were closer now, rapid stuccatos punctuated with a desperate cry. Fury had his pistol in hand, a chrome-plated .45, and the female had her machine gun at the ready. All the cameraman had was his equipment, but he followed those two straight through the airlock and what had to have been the lab area.

In that part of the building, the emergency lights were ceiling strobes, flashing brightly on the TV screen, but the normal lights had stayed on. The lab area was bright white, windowed rooms and offices on either side of the corridor. Fury had taken about five steps inside the lab area, before coming to a stop. He glanced to his right, and muttered something under his breath. The camera swung to the right as well, letting us see what had brought him to a halt.

The lab was trashed. Broken vials and test tubes littered the floor with shards of glass, mixed in with expended brass shells. A microscope and computer monitor had been knocked over onto their sides. And, splashed across the window like paint, a long, thin line of dripping red liquid. The door to the office was wide open as well, recessed into the wall. The camera panned down to the floor for a second, trying to catch the scope of the damage. What it showed the world was a long, dark bloodstain. It came out of the lab, and followed a zig-zagging pattern down the hallway. Several footprints were evident as well, a bit of white tile in a river of deep red. The shot lifted, moving up and following the stain. It reached down the hallway to an overturned gurney. The camera picked up the glint of several more shells lying in the middle of the pooling blood. It also was picking up some sort of sound...something that sounded like ripping paper.

"Daniels, that machine gun is loaded, right?"

"Safety's off, sir."

"Was that the lab the eggheads were using?"

"Yes, sir."

"No other specimens any where else in the lab?"

"Not that I'm aware, sir."

"Alright. McKenzie! Gordon! Report!" Silence met his request, and did so again when he repeated himself. "Anyone's back there, we are authorized to use lethal force, so anyone alive back there, you better say so now!"

Silence again.

Fury looked at Daniel with his eye narrowed. "You stay here, and keep an eye on that lab," he said, motioning with his head towards the stained window. Anything moves, you shoot it. And shoot to kill. Got it?" The woman nodded, bringing up her machine gun. As she covered the doorway, Fury held his pistol in both hands, a classic shooter's grip, and started to move deeper into the lab. The cameraman immediately chose to follow him. He moved around Daniels' back, always keeping the lens directly on the head of SHIELD.

The guys at CNN and the other networks had to be kicking themselves. I wanted to flip back and check out the press conference, just to see if they were still focusing on Ms. Marvel and the in-need-of-new-pants Mr. Jones. I also wondered if someone at SHIELD or in Washington was screaming for someone to cut Fox News' feed, because right now, that network was showing SHIELD's lab facilities to the entire world, and they had a good chance of catching this "specimen" on live TV for everyone to see, to show everyone what might be causing this crisis.

Fury was moving slowly and methodically. He passed several closed lab doors, all attention given to the front. The cameraman was behind him, back several feet, following Fury following the blood stain. It didn't take long for them to reach the gurney lying on its side. The fabric had begun to soak up a bit of the blood, a small line of red in stark contrast to the white cotton.

"Stay back," Fury said, "and don't get in my way."

Suddenly, the Colonel's hand shot out. He grabbed the edge of the gurney, and swung it to the side. It slammed into the wall with a loud crash, and I ain't gonna lie that it made me jump a little bit. Fury was already bringing his gun up, and snarled "move and I blow both your..."

You ever had an "oh crap" moment? Those precious little moments in life when you realize the situation you're in has just gone to complete and utter hell? For some people, it's "oh crap, I don't got enough in my account to cover the mortgage." For others, it's "oh crap, I forgot my girlfriend's birthday." For others, it's "oh crap, that's Spider-Man's fist about six inches from my face."

Having an "oh crap" moment happen to you sucks. Watching someone else have one can sometimes be hilarious. Watching Colonel Nick Fury, leader of the Howling Commandos, head of SHIELD, one of the few people who could tell Iron Man to "get lost" and pull it off?

Watching him have a moment, live on a worldwide news network, went a long way to driving home just how screwed all of us really were.

"Oh, crap," he murmured.


	6. Wrecked

The bloodstain ended in a dead body.

It was the body of a SHIELD member. It slumped against the wall, head bowed, motionless. It sat in a pool of blood, surrounded by dark red liquid dripping from the wounds on its body. Even though his chin was on his chest, I could see the jagged wound on the side of his neck. A few droplets of blood worked their way out of his throat, but it was nothing compared to his other wound, the one that had definitely killed him.

I've never tangled directly with SHIELD, but I know plenty of people who had the misfortune to. Even their dress uniforms, the stuff they were during ceremonies and fancy dinner parties, are comprised of unstable molecules. I have no clue how the hell they work, or what the theory behind them is, or why the hell someone who want to wear something with the word "unstable" right there in the damn item description. Anything made of the stuff, though, is damn near impossible to damage. Rip? Tear? Blow a hole in? Light on fire? Good luck, man. And the guy on the ground wasn't in dress blues, but what looked like full on SHIELD assault armor, military-grade or better. Stuff meant to take a bullet, a super-powered punch, or even a fall off of a five story building. The poor guy would have a bruise the next few days, but nothing would get broken or squished in the process.

The chestpiece of the armor had been peeled apart.

Let me say this again.

The chestpiece of the armor had been peeled apart.

Not pulled off, not yanked away, not cracked, not shattered, but peeled. Silver and gray layers of Kevlar and unstable molecules pulled apart. The camera pulled away from Fury, focusing now on the poor schmuck for a second. He zoomed in on the chestplate. The edges were smooth and glittered a bit, but as the shot got closer, it revealed the guy underneath, past the armor and outerwear...

Remember Outback Steakhouse, and those fried onions they had? Bloomin' Onions. You'd have this peeled, cut onion that looked like a flower, and you'd pull off the little strands of fried onion to wolf down. The best way to describe what I was seeing right now, what the whole world was seeing, was if someone had eaten all of the pieces, save for the ones on the very edge, leaving behind this empty cavity where something edible had one been.

The guy's peeled chestpiece was the outer layer.

And his chest was the empty cavity.

Boomerang caught it first. I heard my friend suddenly choking as he spit out his beer. "Oh, Christ, he's missing his guts. They're clean gone."

"The hell are you..." The cameraman had kneeled down, trying to steady the shot. It improved the lightning of the scene, and it gave me a damn good view of the agent's bottom rib bones. Below that final bone, there was nothing. No skin, no muscle. At the very bottom of the hole, a long, pink cylinder was poking out. It was some part of the agent's digestive system. And the end was a stretchy mess, like someone had pulled the rest of it away.

My Omaha birthday steak almost shot right back up my throat at the sight. I had seen plenty of blood and guts in the course of my career, but nothing so visceral. The high-definition picture didn't make things any easier as well. It took a good pull of beer to keep the bile down, but I still ended up with the acidic taste of vomit in my mouth. "Jesus, did a grenade explode inside of him?"

"It would have to have been a shaped charge," Aleksei offered. "A really damn big one."

On screen, the shot suddenly turned. To his left, Fury was calling out to someone. The cameraman apparently stood up quick, and tried to refocus the shot. It steadied, and showed Fury with his gun out. Whatever the Colonel was aiming at, it wasn't in the shot yet. We could hear Fury speaking in a clear and loud voice, though. "If you don't show me your hands in the next five seconds, I'm going to put a bullet in you. Show me your hands!"

The cameraman slid to one side slightly. The shot now encompassed the entire width of the hallway. From the dead SHIELD agent on the right wall, a bloody smear crossed to the opposite wall. Hunched over, a figure in a white lab coat had its hands to its mouth. Its' head shook vigorously, bits of spittle flying in every direction. We could see that the front of the lab coat was covered in blood, one long line and several small dots. The microphone on the camera was picking up that tearing sound much more clearly now, making it very evident...it was coming from the lab guy sitting on the ground.

"Five...four..." Fury counted in a calm, even tone. On "three," the form looked up, turning his head slightly to show he was a middle-aged man. The look on the guy's face, it was like he was in some sort of trance. His eyes weren't focusing on anything, just staring in the general vicinity of Colonel Fury. His hands came down...his mouth was covered in blood. It dripped from his lips, and when it opened its mouth, making a noiseless gasp, his teeth were stained red.

Something dropped from its hands, just outside the bottom of the shot. The wet sound it made when it slapped into the tile floor sent a chill up my spine. One hand went to the floor, and as the man started to push himself up, the other hand reached out, fingers stretching towards Fury, clawing inward as...

*BANG*

I jumped in surprise as the sound of the gunshot. A single round hole appeared in the forehead of the guy, accompanied by an explosion of bone and brains from the rear. The shot never jerked, or wavered, giving the entire planet a perfect view of Nick Fury's execution of the scientist. The body fell forward, smacking head first into the ground, just in front of Fury's feet. As he looked down at the dead body, from behind the cameraman, a female voice yelled out.

"Sir! Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, Daniels. Damn it, where the hell is my containment team!"

"On it, sir! Command, Daniels, Colonel Fury wants to know...sir, 30 seconds out."

"Better then nothing! Now, where the hell is the specimen?" Fury had his pistol back up, aiming it down the corridor. "I am going to kill every single suit and tie who told us this was the best place to keep it until the CDC guys showed up..." He started forward again, stepping over the body of the dead scientist. Fury measured each step, his head turning in every direction, keeping close tabs on his surroundings. The shot stayed steady as well. The cameraman had kept the shot steady when Fury had put a bullet into the scientist. Now, it looked like he was content to stay where the hell he was. He just kept his camera on Fury as the old soldier looked for this "specimen."

"Guys...did we just see Nick Fury shoot a guy in cold blood?" Boomerang was glued to the screen, his jaw slightly dropped. "I mean, just bang, one shot, between the eyes?"

"Yeah, Fred. The guy was going for Fury," I countered, my own eyes locked to the scene in front of me.

"Huh...well, ain't no jury gonna convict us then for what we did earlier tonight, we did it in self-defense."

I could see Fred's angle, and inside, I felt a sense of relief. But right now, I wasn't thinking about criminal charges and involuntary manslaughter. Nick Fury was on the hunt, looking for someone or something that was directly tied to the scene of slaughter. I couldn't look away. I didn't want to look away. My ass would have been long gone if I had come across a dead shield agent missing his guts and some scientist covered in blood. I may have been a two-bit supervillain, but that didn't make me a damn fool. But here was Fury, playing hero, when he could have just waited for the backup...

He was passing another laboratory, when his head jerked to the right. Then, suddenly, Fury was diving backwards, leaping away from the window an instant before shards of glass sprayed into the corridor, as something big crashed through the opening. It filled nearly the entire corridor, a massive, hulking shape. Even flying backwards, Fury was firing his pistol, eight rapid shots in the space of about three, maybe four seconds. Several of them appeared to impact the huge shape, slamming into a meaty thigh and stitching several holes across its chest. Almost upon landing, Fury was slamming a new clip into his pistol. In the time it took for him to reload and aim, the cameraman was in action, zooming in to give the viewers a clear look at the bloody face of Fury's assailant.

It was a face I knew well, even without the purple mask.

Dirk Garthwaite.

The Wrecker.

X

If you ever wanted to talk about a case of right place, right time, Dirk Garthwaite was one of your top-five examples. Guy used to be a construction worker, got fired for violent tendencies, and then started looting places and leaving a crowbar as a calling sign. So one night, he's breaking into a hotel room. Turns out, Loki was renting the room at the time. Yeah, Loki. The Nordic God of Trickery. Not a guy pretending to be Loki. Loki. The guy had rented this room in an effort to get his powers back after Odin, had taken them away, and he's making a deal with some Nordic Queen to get them back. So Dirk breaks into his hotel room and knocks Loki out. Yeah, one punch, knocked out a god, a god without powers, but still...

So Dirk's looting the room, and he finds Loki's helmet. In a moment of pure whimsy, the guy puts the damn thing on...and in that exact same instant, this Queen appears and thinks Dirk's Loki, and next thing you know, Dirk's walking around with superhuman strength, stamina, durability, and his crowbar's the biggest damn baseball bat on the planet. I watched him knock down a Wal-Mart with one swing of his crowbar. Not part of the Wal-Mart, the entire damn store. Guy's dumb as a post, though. I always knock on Aleksei, but my friend's got a good sense of street smarts. Not Wrecker. There's a reason Thor kept putting him back in jail, because "hit it, hit it again, hit it again" doesn't work against the God of Thunder.

The two of us never got along, mainly because I was always jealous of the guy. I built my gloves out of bits of wire bedding, whatever I could get from the machine shop, and a couple of metal cafeteria plates, all while avoiding daily beatings and shower rape. Here's a guy who literally stumbles into godlike power and can't think of anything more to do with it then hit things. I plan heists, pull together resources, and go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man, all to be considered a laughing-stock by the hero community. Meanwhile, a guy like the Wrecker throws a tanker truck over the side of FDR Drive and he warrants a full response from the Avengers.

X

"SIR, STAY DOWN!"

The shot suddenly jerks to the side. You could hear the cameraman yelp in surprise at the sound of a submachine gun firing a few feet behind him. On the left edge of the screen, the bullets were slamming into the Wrecker's chest, making a neat, ragged circle in the middle of his dark-olive uniform. I counted two, maybe three bursts of controlled fire, shots that would have put any normal human being down for good.

The Wrecker's response was to start moving forward. I'd seen the guy shrug off blows from Thor, so it doesn't surprise me that he's walking through a hail of bullets. In moving forward, the cameraman was able to focus directly on the Wrecker's face.

Or what was left of it.

The right half of his face was intact, though the eye was slightly clouded over. The left half, though, was missing everything. The outer layer of skin, from his chin up to his eye, and back to where his should have been, had been ripped away. I could see the muscle clearly, but it should have been dripping blood, instead of being dry. The edges of the massive wound were ragged, and his teeth, stained a cherry red, clicked as he lumbered forward. One hand...

As opposed to his face, dark blood dripped from his glove. It coated the purple material in its entirety. And I could make out the reflective threads of silver material in sharp contrast to the deep red all over the Wrecker's fingers.

One hand reached down towards the still grounded Fury. The Colonel had reloaded his gun, and took aim at the Wrecker. His growling voice shot from the speakers. "HEAD SHOTS, DANIELS, TAKE HIM DOWN!"

The stream of bullets from off-camera shifted upwards, joined by single shots from Fury's pistol. The three of us watched as what was left of the Wrecker's face disintegrated under the hail of gunfire. Which should have been impossible. The man took direct shots to the jaw from Thor's hammer, which had a lot more stopping power then a 9mm, and got maybe a bloody nose. Skin and muscle was flying off under the assault, but the Wrecker didn't seem to notice. He kept pushing on, still reaching for Fury. His mouth opened wide, the Wrecker's face nearly a skull as the tissue was shot away. The gunfire slackened a bit, as Daniels yelled "RELOADING!" It took maybe three seconds for the sound of semi-automatic fire to pick back up. The first burst from Daniels turned out to be the last. The Wrecker's left eye suddenly exploded as one of Daniels' bullets struck directly into the socket. Milky fluid squirted into the air, and for a split second, the Wrecker was perfectly still, one arm outstretched. When he started to fall over, Fury had to roll quickly to his right. The supervillain crashed into the tile floor, sending the overturned gurney a few inches to one side. Fury scooted backwards a few inches from the body, the pistol still aimed at the Wrecker's head. Dirk didn't move, though. Daniels' shot had put him down for good.

"God damn it," Fury breathed as he stared at the motionless Wrecker. "No one told me this..."

"Sir, to your right!"

Fury's head, and his pistol's aim, snapped to that side. The gurney's movement gave the cameraman a perfect line of sight to what Daniels had been warning her commanding officer about.

The SHIELD trooper was getting back on his feet.

A loud crash came from behind. Not on TV, but behind us. Rhino and I immediately spun around, and I found myself raising one of my hands in reflex. Boomerang had dropped the bottle of lager, and it shattered on the concrete floor of the warehouse. His gaze was locked on the TV, his jaw dropped in disbelief. "No way." Boomerang breathed in disbelief. "No way, mate, that guy's missing his guts!"

"Sir?" Daniels's voice held a cautious, inquisitive tone, asking for orders. Fury was getting to his own feet as the trooper's hand flailed in the air. It came to rest on the side of the gurney, and the guy used it to help leverage himself to his feet. He moved...almost like a marionette being controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer. One arm jerked, then his leg shot out, then his other legs buckled under. But he was getting to his feet. The trooper's gaze reminded me of the scientist's earlier (It had been about a minute or two, all caught in high-definition brought to you by Fox News) look...confused, almost trance like. At one point, the trooper was bent over, using his other hand to push off of the floor, fingers sinking into the pool of blood their had collected underneath him. The camera failed to catch it directly...luckily...but you could make out something fall from his chest cavity through the hole torn into his armor. The splashing sound it made, though, as it fell into the pool...

"Screw this," Fury said. He took a step forward, putting the pistol right to the soldier's head. That action seemed to finally grab his attention, and it was starting to turn its head when Fury pulled the trigger. Just like with the scientist, brain matter exploded from the back side of the soldier's head, and he slumped to the ground, his head next to the still unmoving Wrecker's. As we watched, Fury followed with a second shot into the soldier's head, along with one to the back of the Wrecker's. After a few seconds, he turned to face Daniels. The camera caught his side profile, jaw working, his eyepatch clearly visible. "Daniels, seal off this area, find out where that containment team is, and tell them to report to me for a serious ass kicking." She nodded, spinning around and going towards the airlock door. Fury followed, and, moving quickly, so did the cameraman. He caught Fury's statement, the words that pretty much blew the 'official' story out of the water before it got any traction whatsoever.

"Screw Norman Osborn and his suggestions. I am not going to allow motherfucking zombies in my motherfucking headquarters."


	7. Snap Decisions

A few seconds later, the feed finally cut off. The Fox News logo appeared on the screen, along with the standard words. "WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULITES. PLEASE STAND BY." Some guy in Washington had finally found the right guy in New York City to scream at, and someone flipped a switch or pulled a plug. But by this point, the damage had already been done.

Boomerang had flopped back down into his chair. His eyes were wide with shock, just staring at the TV screen. I remembered that I was rubbing my face, fingers going over my chin again and again, trying to comprehend what I had just seen. My mind was sliding tumblers, going over the events of the evening with a lockpick. It made sense...but I didn't want to admit. It was too over the top, even for all the stuff this city had seen. I kept putting mental crime tape over everything, just sealing it off and telling the rest of my mind "nothing to see here."

It took Rhino to charge right through it.

"Herman, did Nick Fury just say the word 'zombie?'"

After a few seconds, I responded. "Yeah, Aleksei. He did."

"Ah, CHRIST!" Boomerang had his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth. "You have...this has to be a joke, or something. Zombies? The living dead? Come on!" He looked up at me in confusion. "I mean...Mysterio. This has to be one of his tricks, or some kind of prank. Squibs and stunt work, right?"

I found myself shaking my head, remembering the way the Wrecker's face had looked before being shredded by bullets. "That'd have to be one hell of a trick for Beck to pull off, man. The whole world? No, that's way above anything he's ever done."

"No, Herman. No way." The Australian ran a hand through his short brown hair, eyes wide. "Impossible."

Really? Aliens, magic, demons, symbiotes, mutants, Hollywood special effects, Boomerang could believe. The living dead, though, was something he just couldn't grasp his mind around.

Myself? I had just watched a SHIELD soldier try to stand up and walk without the benefit of a digestive system. The scientist's face, covered in blood. And one of the toughest, strongest, roughest villains I knew put down, for good, with a bullet to the eye, and the coup de grace was delivered by a legitimate World War II hero. The tumblers were sliding in my head. It made sense. After everything I had seen tonight, the concept of dead people lurching around, going after people and having them for dinner?

It clicked.

Rhino reached for the remote control. "Aleksei," I asked, "what are you doing?"

"I want to see what CNN's saying." He went back down a couple of channels, back the anchor we had originally be watching.

"...losing our feed to SHIELD HQ." The anchor was staring into the camera, his mouth working a bit, but he struggled to find something to say, disbelief and confusion evident on his face. "Um...we'd like to...apologize...for that footage we just aired, ladies and gentlemen, and for its graphic content. Um...as soon as we get an official word from Washington about Colonel Fury's use of the word...we'll be sure..." He stopped for a moment, eyes leaving the camera. All that time being taught to read the teleprompter, and now without it, faced with something absolutely extraordinary, the guy with the $1000 haircut couldn't string together a simple sentence. It wasn't too hard. Folks, we just saw Nick Fury shoot three people live on national television, and apparently, the unburied dead are returning to life, seeking human victims. Easy.

But in the face of this crisis?

"We'll be right back."

And they cut away.

Even during 9/11, they didn't cut away. When the Avengers and the Secret Avengers were going at it hammer and tongs a few summers ago, they didn't cut away. Hell, the cameraman who caught Captain America's order to stand down did it from a distance of 10 feet! Now, though...a Hyundai commercial, for their new hybrid, played on CNN.

"Aleksei, check MSNBC." He obliged. Commercial. CNBC? Commercial. Headline News? Commercial. A quick look at CBS and NBC also showed commercials, and the local Fox station was showing the same "TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES" sign that Fox News had.

"Man, they worked fast," I murmured as Aleksei went to check ABC...

"...exclusive footage, Charles, and it's just...I can't begin to describe what I'm seeing here right now."

I sat up, eyes drawn instantly to the screen. Out of all the networks, somehow, ABC hadn't gone to commercial. The TV was showing a shot of a city street, from above. It took me a few seconds, but I realized, once I heard the sounds of the blades, that a helicopter was hovering over a street somewhere. When the voice spoke again, I immediately recognized who it was: Stephanie Andrews, traffic reporter for ABC 7.

"Charles, if you can hear me, I'm currently above Desgrosses and Greenwich Streets in Lower Manhattan...and the scene below me could be a perfect example of Hell on Earth."

The helicopter was low, maybe 30, 40 feet of the ground. The camera panned slowly from the left to the right, doing its best to show us each side of the street and the intersection. Just after where Desgrosses crossed Greenwich going towards the river, two cars and an SUV were tangled together. The SUV's grill had plowed into the side of one of the cars, and the other car had slammed into the back of the SUV. Gathered around the cars were five, maybe ten people, right up against the metal of the automobiles. Maybe ten more bystanders, moving slowly towards the crash, lurched up Greenwich Street. Nearby, a small crowd huddled together on the ground, hunched over. Their backs blocked the view of the street.

"The crash occurred a few minutes ago, Charles, as one of the cars ran a red light and was T-boned by the light truck sitting down there. Almost immediately, a crowd began to gather, coming from the nearby stores and alleyways. The driver of the blue car pulled himself from the wreckage..." Stephanie's voice broke for a second, but quickly recovered. "The crowd assaulted the driver as he stumbled from the scene. He made it a few feet before four or five of them overwhelmed him and pulled him to the ground. The rest of the crowd closed in on the cars, and have trapped the passengers inside. We can see the crowd banging on the glass from up here, Charles...and if what Colonel Fury said is true, then the safety of the passenger is indeed in question."

"Herman." Rhino nudged me gently with a broad shoulder. "Isn't that where the 7-11 is?"

He was right. There was a 7-11 on Desgrosses, where I got my munchies and late-night, post-crime-spree snacks, ten, maybe fifteen minutes from the warehouse. Easily within walking distance...or lurching distance.

"Someone's coming out!" On screen, the driver's door to the rear car had opened. The person inside shoved the door against the mob, trying to force it. Two guys stumbled backwards, knocked to the ground, and whoever it was tried to pull themselves out of the car. I couldn't make anything out other then long black hair. They tried to move away from the car, but the things pushed back against the door. Three forms shoved back, and whoever it was ended up pinned against the frame, trapped by the door. Even while airborne, over the sounds of the helicopter's blades cutting through the air, the microphone picked up the faint sounds of high pitched screaming.

One of the things on the ground had gotten back up. It reached out, and grabbed a hold of the driver's long black hair. The screaming got more audible as his or her head got yanked to the side. He or she put an arm out to try to get leverage...and two of the guys pinning them to the car immediately grabbed it. I could make out their heads lowering just before the crowd converged on the passenger, a mass of hands reaching in and obscuring them from view.

"Oh my God," I heard Stephanie mutter. "Charles...oh, God..."

The camera stayed focused on the scene for a few seconds, but when the passengers in the SUV made a break for it, the shot thankfully switched. The mob, it seemed, had been distracted by the screaming passenger from the rear car enough that whoever was in the SUV decided to run for it. The passenger side door flew open, and a figure climbed out. One of the nearby forms lurched for him, but the guy from the SUV shoved him away. Right behind, another person got out of the SUV, this one with blonde hair.

You could see it, from above. The crowd just...shifted. It was like watching a flock of geese change course in mid-flight. Almost instantly, they stopped moving for the SUV, and started going for the pair who had escaped the SUV. Arms reached, heads turned, and legs moved, in that order. The pair wove their way through seven or eight of those things, easily avoiding them, but everywhere they turned, another one seemed to pop up. If I moved my eyes from one of them, whenever I glanced back, two more had popped up. From the alleys, from other storefronts, and from Greenwich and Degrosses, they flowed, maybe ten more showing up in the time it took for the couple to complete their brief journey.

"Charles...they made their escape...and it looks like they're seeking refuge in a convenience store...and...and the crowd is still attacking that passenger...I...I can hear her screaming still..."

"Christ," Fred said in a low voice. "They're screwed."

I couldn't tell you, at the time, why I did what I did. At the time, I just did it.

No thoughts of glory, or the key to a city, or even a "Lewinsky" from the blonde. One second, I was sitting on the couch, watching ABC. The next, I was grabbing my vibro-smashers from the recharging station on the workbench.

"Herman?" Fred watched me from the chair as I slid them on. "What are you doing?"

The vibro-smasher for my right hand is the first one I put on. I pushed the trigger with my free hand. The small vibrations that buffeted my hand indicated that it was functioning properly. "That's four blocks from here, ten minutes, maybe seven if I run." I locked the glove on my hand and wrist, twisting to click it home. "7-11's are pretty secure. If they lock the door and shove some stuff to block it off, I can make it there before those things bust inside."

"You're...you're crazy, mate!" Boomerang shook his head in amazed bewilderment. "You're actually going to go out there and fight through a herd of...a herd of bloody zombies?"

"They'll be distracted trying to break in," I rationalized. I was repeating the process with my other hand, locking and initializing my weapons. "I don't have to deal with all of them, just the ones in my way. I can outrun them, and if I clear a path, so can the people inside the store."

"Again, you're bloody crazy!"

Maybe. But at the time...I didn't think I was crazy. Insane, maybe, a little voice screeched at the back of my mind. The rest of me? No way was I going to sit on a couch, grill a steak, and drink beer while, four blocks away, people were being attacked, mobbed...and probably eaten. Four blocks. No way.

I turned away from the workbench to look at my friends. Rhino was sitting on the couch, still watching the scene on television. Fred had gotten up at some point in the process. "Herman..."

"Yeah," I heard myself saying in response. "But I'm going." I studied my friend up and down. He was shaking his head in disbelief, watching me get ready to possibly go commit suicide on national television...though with my luck, they'd probably lose the feed and come back just in time to watch Spider-Man or someone swoop in and save the day while also arresting me for breaking and...

Damn it, Herman. Too much time thinking, not enough time moving.

I was heading towards the warehouse's main entrance when Rhino stood up from the couch. The furniture sighed in relief as the massive Eastern European rolled his neck as best he could in his bonded armor. "It'll be faster if I carry you, Herman," he said, walking over to meet me.

"Aleksei, you don't..." I started to say.

"Do you think I'm going to sit here and watch you break into a 7-11 all by yourself? Besides, you need someone to watch your back."

I didn't show how relieved I was that Aleksei had decided to join me. What I was doing was stupid, like "going 12 rounds with the Lizard" stupid. No way was I going to ask Boomerang and Rhino to join me and risk their lives...but having a 700 pound walking tank beside me bettered the odds.

I slapped Rhino on the arm in gratitude, before turning to Boomerang. I knew Fred, and I knew the answer before I asked the question. "Fred, you coming?"

"HELL NO!"

The forcefulness of his reply actually made me laugh, the sound of joy echoing through the warehouse. "You're the sane one of the trio then. Alright, you hold down the fort and close the door behind us. If you need to activate the security system, the code's 461967."

"Whatever...just don't get yourself killed. Crazy bloomer..." Boomerang muttered. He walked back to the couch and plopped down, eyes on the TV which still showed the feed from ABC. "And close the damn door behind you."

Rhino and I walked to the small man-sized...well, Rhino-sized after a few mishaps...door to the side of the massive sliding loading door for the warehouse. You might think we were walking with purpose, with power, a cocky, arrogant walk you'd see guys like Bullseye or Johnny Storm pull off, like two gods who were about to wade into the heart of darkness and bitch slap a couple of corpses for violating the laws of nature.

Well, friends, the only thing that was going through my mind was how many beers I had drank that evening and hoping I didn't end up pissing in my costume, either from fear or from having broken the seal. That would have been great, especially on live television. It had happened once to Stilt-Man. Poor guy. At his wake, we were still telling that story while toasting his memory...

No time for a bathroom break now, though. I pulled my mask over my head, securing it tightly around my neck. A few deep breaths through the fabric to acclimate. Gloves on. Suit's powered up.

"Let's go, Aleksei."


	8. The Targeting System

Rhino let me down onto the pavement about fifty yards from the 7-11.

I'll let you in on a little secret. Rhino's fast. Maybe he's a little slow upstairs, and his fighting style is more in line with that of a sledgehammer then a katana. But you let him get a head of steam and a straight path, and there's nothing on the face of this planet, and I'd be willing to lay money down the same's true among the stars, that he can't bowl over when he gets a full head of steam. Mainly it's his mass, but years of carrying around that armor that's bonded to his skin give my friends legs like pistons. When he goes all out in a sprint, Aleksei can move.

He's panting a little as we stand side-by-side on Degrosses Avenue. It had taken six minutes, total, to cover the four blocks. This time of the evening, Lower Manhattan was almost deserted of automobile traffic. After making our way out of the warehouse district, the streets had been clear. One car passed us along the way, going southbound towards the Battery as we headed north. I wonder what the driver thought as he saw this grey beast running up the West Side Highway with a guy tucked under his arm. It wasn't the most glamorous way to travel, and every time I bumped against his arm or his side, my contact plates would go off. It bounced me around, and somewhere in my head I knew I'd feel it the next morning. But it got me and him where we needed to go, and that was the important thing.

Along the way, I had noticed that the things...yeah, I know they're zombies, but at this point, it hadn't quite sunk in yet. It screws up the narrative, but hey, I'm telling this story and this is how it all went down. Don't worry. In just a bit, we all start throwing around the "z" word with impunity. For now, though, my brain understood the concept of a zombie, but it hadn't worked its way into my conscious thought yet. The things were just that. Things. Assailants. Murderers. Ghouls.

And before arriving at our destination, they had been conspicuous by their absence.

There had been three, live and in vivid color, at SHIELD HQ. My last look at the TV has shown probably thirty of those creatures at the intersection, and half of them had been moving towards the 7-11. Based on those numbers, I had expected to have run through and dodged past a decent-sized amount of ghouls. We saw two, maybe three, along the way. I say "maybe" because the third might have just been a drunk homeless person in a dumpster.

Standing next to Rhino, it was easy to figure out why the numbers had been low. All those ghouls we should have passed had made their way here in the hopes of joining the buffet. Or maybe they were drawn by the sound of the ABC 7 traffic copter.

"Jesus," I said quietly. There were two small groups of maybe five things each. One group, about thirty feet away from where we stood, was huddled next to the blue car, crouched on the ground. The other group was near the driver's side door of the furthest car. Both groups were quiet, the occasional snarl or growl eminating. If I didn't know what was going on around the world, by the way they knelt and crouched, arms moving and jerking in their small circles, it would have reminded me of a basement craps game. It was the pair of legs sticking out of the nearby circle that killed that image, though. One foot still had a loafer on it, while the other foot was missing. The entire lower leg, actually, below the knee, was gone.

Past that closet circle, a group of creatures pushed against the glass store-front of the 7-11. The inside was still lit, but that's all I could make out through the pounding hands. "Tell me you got a plan, Herman," Rhino asked me. Beside the small groups and the mob attacking the store, I would have guessed maybe ten more of those things stood between us and the 7-11. The ten were all moving very slowly, even for those creatures, something hampering their mobility. But they still walked, pushing towards the storefront. So intent on their goal of attacking whoever was inside, the guy in the brown-and-yellow quilted suit and the seven foot tall armored tank went unnoticed for the moment, even by the helicopter filming the scene overhead.

"They're so slow, Aleksei...I think we can just walk right past most of them." I pointed towards the glass. It was holding solid, but I couldn't see if anyone inside had made any barricades or "improvements." "If we get close enough, you watch my back and I'll get everyone out. Can you handle these guys?"

The sound of cracking knuckles was like rifle fire to my ears. "Easy," Rhino replied. "And I bet they can't break my skin, either."

"Don't get cocky," I warned him. "Now come on." We started moving towards the store, moving to our left towards the sidewalk. The storefronts leading up to the 7-11 were dark, a few of them with shutters rolled down for the evening. Sidewalks were clear all the way to the storefront. I remembered hoping that maybe the few parked cars and shadowed awnings, mixed with the cover provided by the helicopter's noise, would give us a free and clear walk right to the mob.

Our plan didn't survive five feet.

One of the things in the nearby circle must have glanced up or heard the sound of Rhino's footsteps. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her stagger to her feet, staring directly at the two of us. In her hands, grasping it like a piece of watermelon, was a lower leg missing its foot. In the wash from the helicopter's spotlight, I saw that the woman was missing her lower lip...and the blood from the pieces of the leg she had devoured was running down her chin like rain from an overflowing gutter.

She dropped the leg, and raised a hand to point at us. I saw her mouth open, a gush of red liquid escaping. Immediately, the group turned. In nearly one fluid motion, save for the poor guy who was missing half his neck, four heads (five from No-Neck) turned to look at us. Four sets of eyes gazed at us, but instead of the trance-like stare that I'd had seen outside the Bar with No Name, they were locked directly onto myself and my friend. I know it couldn't have been more then a second, but I felt like I was being eyed like a roast hanging in a butcher's window.

As one, all of them lurched forward. The guy in the ripped Nets jersey tripped over the leg still attached to the body, and smacked face-first in the pavement. The others, though, stumbled, trying to stand up at the same time they reached for us. Their upper bodies twisted as they stretched their arms for us, their legs still trying to push themselves up to a full staggering position.

The harsh spotlight was now shining directly on them. The reporter had either noticed the sudden motion of the crowd, or the arrival of Rhino and myself. The glare washed out their features, details lost in the white light. Six black forms, now almost fully upright, staggered towards the two of us. The enhanced audio sensors in my mask picked up, over the helicopter blades slicing through the air, a low moan that pushed through the noise. Almost immediately, the guys in front of us joined in. It was...I wouldn't go so far as to call them the screams of the damned. But the noise scraped across my brain, a mix of animal growling...and want. A primal need, a soul desperately craving something...

A hand fell on my shoulder. "Come on, Herman," Rhino said. "If we stand here..."

My friend didn't need to finish that sentence. I turned away from the crowd moving towards me. There were six of them, but there were moving really damn slow. One of them shook like a seizure patient with a broken leg as he walked, and the other weren't much faster. But there were coming towards us, and that was enough for my ass to get in gear. I ripped my gaze away from the six schmucks stumbling in the spotlight, refocusing on the 7-11 in the distance. "Alright, we can just..."

She was only ten feet away and staring right at us. If she had been more then fifteen, I would have eaten my proverbial hat. Pretty thing, the very definition of jailbait. Shoulder length blonde hair. A tight yellow t-shirt. Hiphuggers and heeled boots. And one blue eye staring directly at the two of us, the other socket hollow and caked with dried blood. With a snarl, she stalked towards us, her hands claws, moving with driven purpose.

"Oh, crap."

X

Here's where I'm supposed to give you the standard "I plowed into the heart of danger, ignoring my fear and counting on my strength and my cause to carry the day."

Instead, I'll tell you what I was really thinking.

"Notgoodnotgoodnotgoodnotgood!"

I had dealt with two of these things before, back in Alphabet City. Both times I had assumed they were drug-driven psychos who had a hard on for attacking women and little kids. Now, though, here it was...in my face. Coming directly for me. Teeth bared like Sabretooth. And playing off the fact that she only has one god damn eye.

Zombie.

She was a zombie, this fifteen year old girl who would have spurned a debate between myself, Boomerang, and Speed Demon about whether or not jail time would be worth it (and, for the record, my answer would probably have been yes). She wanted me. My flesh. My blood.

Jesus Christ, I was in a Max Brooks novel. The opening salvo of World War Z ground bursting right here in Lower Manhattan.

Boomerang. Right now, that bastard was probably popping open yet another beer and watching me freeze up live on national television. And I can imagine the smirk on his face. "Told you so, Herman," his voice said in my head. "Playing Boy Scout? Bad idea. Getting smashed? Good idea. And let's keep in mind, mate, the helicopter overhead is still broadcasting to a worldwide audience. So they're gonna see one of two things. The Shocker, famed criminal and renowned safecracker, turning tail and running away from a fifteen year old girl. Or the Shocker, famed criminal and renowned safecracker, getting torn about and eaten by a pack of wild zombies. Devil and the deep blue sea, mate..."

Third option. Do what I came here to do, rescue those people in the 7-11, and not look liked a fool or a damn coward...or a corpse...on national TV.

The girl is about five feet away, reaching for me with blood-caked fingernails, when I raise my glove and give her a level one-blast to the chest.

The girl staggered backwards a couple of steps before managing to right herself. I really didn't expect anything different, after seeing the abuse the Wrecker took earlier that evening, but it did give me momentary pause when she staggered right back towards me, making...or needing...no effort to shake off my attack.

Fine. This time, I held the trigger down a little longer, a level-two vibration, wider in scope and stronger in effect. I catch her in the same place I did before, right in the middle of her chest. This one knocked her down, as she rocked backwards before tripping over her feet and landing ass-first on the street. There, I thought, starting to move forward, that should keep...

As I watched her get back up, bearing her teeth at the meal in the quilted suit, I was faced with two options. Both choices came from deep within my brain. Normally intellectual, inquisitive, and informed, the primal portion of my mind decided to take over. One part was screaming "flight," turning tale and running from this girl who just wouldn't stay the hell down. I recognized that voice. It had been in my ear the past few weeks, whispering sour words about how I blew a job again, or how I had barely gotten away from the NYPD without anything to show for it, or how Paladin landed those redhead twins down in Miami during my last attempt at a score. Right now, instead of playing the calm, cool, collected devil on my shoulder, it had grabbed a firm hold of my ear, forgoing slickness for volume.

"She's a teenager! You blasted her twice! She's still coming for you! And there's about a million more of her surrounding you! Get the hell out of here!"

The other half of my brain, the part that chose the "fight" option...it knows me better. It's the part that's kept me in the business all these years. Instead of screaming, it whispers its words, slicing through all the fear and volume and cutting directly to where it'll get my attention most.

"Spider-Man wouldn't run."

Level three. It's enough to knock out an unprotected target with a direct hit. Both gloves, side by side, aimed directly at this little teenager who had her decaying mind on Shocker tartare. The ensuing shockwave was enough that I could see the zombie flanking her to the right side, about seven or eight feet back, stumble slightly, and its long black hair billow from the vibration of the air.

A level one shockwave feels like a direct punch to the jaw. A level two shockwave feels like a direct punch to the nose. A level three feels like I punched you in your kidneys. Both of them. Level four is like I went through your sternum, grabbed your kidneys, and crushed them like a grape. And level five? You don't have kidneys anymore. Or a sternum. It'll liquefy your organs like an overpressure wave from a fuel-air explosion bomb.

If you think about it, the human body's an amazing piece of work. A level five blast will annihilate a storefront completely. A human body? The skin will stay intact while the organs, and some of the smaller bones, become jelly.

The shockwave, at this range, slams directly into her chest. It lifts the girl off of her feet and sends her flying backwards. She slams into another zombie, and both of them fall to the ground in a tangled heap.

I don't care if you're dead or undead, no one gets up from...

...she's getting back up.

Her arms are broken. I can see that as the girl kneels on the ground, trying to push herself up with limbs that can't support her weight. Her radial bone is sticking out from her left arm, and each time she puts weight on it, I can hear it crack a little more. But it's not her arms I'm really focusing on...it's her face. Her remaining eye is fixed on me, and her teeth...several are missing, either from the impact of hitting the pavement or from the vibrations catching her in the jaw. Still, she's snarling at me, a wolf preparing to pounce on its prey, even if she can't make it to a standing position...

The helicopter was still above us. The spotlight was illuminating me, Rhino, and the two zombies my last blast had knocked down. The whole world had seen me smack this girl three times, and each time..."God damnit," I cursed, getting ready to let loose a level-four vibration. "Why the hell won't you stay down!"

"Because you're not getting them in the head!"

I half-turned, then fully turned my head to look at my friend towering above me. Rhino was looking at the girl, his eyes focused on her efforts to get upright. "Colonel Fury shot the Wrecker in the head, Herman. Try shocking them there!"

Click.

Of course! Oh, I'm a bloody idiot.

The guy falling on the fire hydrant. Speed Demon slamming the guy into the side of the school bus. The bladerang to the back of the head. Fury shooting the Wrecker's eye out. It's the brain, I realized...ok, ok, Aleksei realized it. I had spent my entire criminal career training myself to always aim for the center of mass, to ensure the largest possible surface area would get caught in my vibrations. As such a close range, my vibrations didn't have a chance to spread out like they normally died. I kept upping the power, but it all went into the zombie's chest, and I could wail on that all day and not stop the creature.

Kill the brain, though...and you kill the ghoul.

It sounded reasonable. And what I had been doing the past few seconds... would you believe all the above blasting, theorizing, hand-wringing, panicking, and rationalization happened in the space of fifteen seconds? Time slows to a crawl when you're having this much fun...it didn't phase me at all. I had a new plan. I knew how to adapt.

My feet moved of their own accord. I closed the distance between myself and the girl with the useless arms. I was barely aware of the helicopter overhead, the harsh white light just not registering to me at that moment. Remember earlier when I said I wasn't going power walk out of the warehouse? When I saw the video later, I was striding towards this girl, who just a few scant seconds before had almost caused me to run away like...well, a little girl. I looked confident, proud...and sure of myself.

And why not? The tumblers had fallen into place, the lock had been turned. I had this situation in hand. That little voice of panic that had been screaming into my ear was muted, and the voice of reason, of confidence, was up to freakin' eleven.

She reached for me, but with broken arms, her hands just hung limply towards the pavement. Broken teeth and an empty eye socket tried to lunge forward, but to no avail.

I put my right hand out, thumb on the trigger, aiming directly at her forehead...

Level two blast. Just to be sure.

Click.

At point blank range, the blast snapped her neck. I could hear her collarbone break as her head rocked backwards. The air around my fist shimmered slightly as the vibration slammed into the girl's face. Her snarling stopped instantly, and her body fell forward. She landed chin-first, her body in a crushed upside-down v on the pavement, her lone eye staring into the distance, past me, her former just-out-of-reach-Biggie-Sized-meal. A thin trickle of blood pooled from her nose, dripping onto the pavement. But most importantly, she wasn't moving, she wasn't getting back up, and she wasn't trying to eat me.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I felt proud for putting down a fourteen year girl with two broken arms and little to no cognitive thought process. In the supervillain world, you took your pimp moments when you could get them.

Next to her was the zombie that had been knocked down by her impromptu flight and almost back to his feet. He was about seven feet away, I judged as I threw a level two at him. From that distance, his head didn't snap back, but he froze in place for a second before falling to the ground. Good. If I had to throw level threes and fours around, my gloves would go dry in a hurry. I could keep level twos up for a good long...

I felt something fall onto my shoulder. My contact pads activated immediately brushing whatever it was off of me. I quickly spun around. In front of me, just two feet away, a middle-aged man missing his jaw was reaching out for me again. His $1000 suit was covered in blood and gore. Where the lower half of his mouth used to be, what was left of his tongue slowly moved back and forth, and the best he could offer was a strangled gargle as he tried to grab me again...

I remember reaching back, and smacking him in the forehead with a palm thrust. The metal of my vibro-smasher clunked dully against his forehead. Jawless staggered backwards a few feet before hitting a wall. But he was still up and mobile. I had hoped that any type of head trauma would be enough to knock these things down for the count, but from the looks of things, the brain had to be completely scrambled before the dead would die again.

The guy pushed off from the wall...a seven-foot gray wall.

Rhino simply reached out and grabbed the guy by his shoulders. Massive gray hands squeezed tightly as my friend spun around. Jawless left his feet as Aleksei played 'discus thrower,' spinning around once before letting the zombie fly...right past me. Well, three feet past me, but still, ravenous undead creature, a bit too close for comfort. I followed the thing's flight...which ended abruptly, as it slammed into a group of three zombies that had been staggering in our general direction. I quickly looked around, and realized, that in the past thirty seconds or so, Rhino and I had become surrounded.

God damned tunnel vision. I had focused so much on the problem of the little girl who wouldn't stay down that I had allowed the two of us to be cut off. Don't get me wrong, there was room to move, and a good solid level three or four would probably mow these guys down like wheat before the reaper...

(I had to wonder, very briefly, what the Grim Reaper was up to...but quickly slammed that Pandora's Box shut)

...but still, being surrounded by thirty members of a slobbering horde of flesh eaters was a situation to be avoid at every single cost possible. The helicopter's spotlight shining down upon the two of us, lighting us up like a big neon buffet sign to the crowd, didn't help matters.

"Let's move, man. Clear the way." Aleksei moved in front of me, where a former Mets fan was dragging a broken leg behind him as he came for the two of us. With a swing of his arm, Aleksei knocked him off of his feet. The limper flew through the air, coming to a halt when he crashed into the side window of the SUV, sending safety glass tinkling onto the pavement.

My gray-skinned friend moved at a light jog, his large feet stomping into the pavement with every step. He swung his arms to clear the path to the 7-11 of the undead, each motion a wide, sweeping attack. Those few zombies that managed to avoid his blows I'd finish off at close range. I stuck with level two blasts, powerful enough to put a zombie down without putting a serious drain on my vibro-smashers. By the time we reached the sidewalk outside the store, about ten zombies were motionless behind us, clearly marking our path of destruction.

A couple of zombies had been pounding on the full-length glass windows that ran along the front of the store. As Aleksei and I had gotten close, most of them turned to face us. One, however, kept pounding on the front door. He was either oblivious to the pondering footsteps of Rhino, or was that focused on the prize waiting him inside. There was one zombie to the left, and one to the right as well, that were now stumbling towards the two of us. "I got this guy on the left, Rhino. Get the other two."

"On it, Herman." I watched as Aleksei took two steps forward...and punched his zombie in the face. A light jab that packed a lot of power regardless, the zombie's head snapped back from the impact. His body slowly toppled, falling like a domino to the pavement. "Damn," my friend exclaimed, "these guys are fragile."

"Well they're dead, Aleksei." I had my fist pointed towards the zombie that was stumbling towards me. This close to the store, I didn't want to risk a vibration damaging the plate glass window that was right beside me. I had to tell myself to be calm and a little patient, which was hard to do when there's an undead cannibal in an "I 3 NY" t-shirt bearing down on you. Damn tourists...

I think of a level one blast at a shot from a .22 caliber pistol. It isn't messy, but at close range, it still has a lot of stopping power. The poor schmuck just dropped. Behind him, only one lone zombie stumbled up the sidewalk between the parked cars and the storefronts, far enough way that I decided to save a charge and deal with him when he got closer.

The zombie that had been pounding on the front door finally decided to give us his attention. Behind him, the 7-11 could have been open for a normal night of business, save for the coolers and shelves that had been piled in front of the door. A Red Bull case formed the first line of defense, followed by a ice cream cooler, a round ice chest with the Pepsi logo emblazoned on the side, and then a few more displays. Beyond that stood the first row of shelves. Just over the top of overpriced boxes of Lucky Charms (and as an aside here, $5.37 for a box of Lucky Charms? No wonder I agreed with Fred that we should rob a supermarket), I could see a crown of blonde hair, hiding behind the collected goods.

I was wondering how we were going to put this one down without breaking the front door when Rhino, in his own direct way, solved that problem. With one hand, he grabbed the back of the zombie's head, entangling the greasy black strands in his fingers for a moment, before simply hurling the creature to the ground. I didn't even have a chance to register anything specific before Rhino lifted one massive foot.

"Skull damage, right?" Then Aleksei drove his foot down onto the guy's face.

The way the guy's head exploded under Rhino's stomp reminded me of the old comedian Gallagher. It was like using a sledgehammer to crush a watermelon. Bits of skull and a whole mess of blood and brain matter splattered everywhere. It dripped down the lower half of the front door to the 7-11, sprayed out into the street...and all over my ankles. "Oh, that's freakin' gross, Aleksei," I said, shaking one of my legs to get as much of the gore off as I could.

"Sorry, Herman," he said. "I just figured...you know."

"I do, and it worked. Just watch your blast zone next time."

So there I am, shaking one leg, and then the other, keeping a hand on my friend's chest for balance. And then I realized...the spotlight was still shining on us, showing the whole world my attempts to combine dry cleaning and the Hokey Pokey.

The pilot had to be as low as he dared to go. Under my mask, the electronics in my ears washed out the sound of the rotors. But the prop wash was sending bits of paper and other debris scattering around the intersection, and whipping the hair and clothing of the remaining zombies. I took a brief moment to scan our surroundings. In our little trip from the edge of the mess to the front of the store, fifteen, maybe twenty zombies lay in our wake. That was the good news. The bad news was that there were still twenty, maybe twenty-five more about. But the good news from that aspect was their distance. 30 seconds, tops, before any of them were close enough to cause Rhino and I any serious distraction. And only one zombie stumbling up the sidewalk, our planned escape route.

We were going to pull this off.

"Keep an eye out, Aleksei, and yell if they get too close." I knocked on the door with my vibro-smasher. "YO!" I banged a few times, careful not to break the glass. "Hey! You guys in there! We're here to rescue you!" The glass shook a bit under my efforts. When no one peeked up from behind the shelves, I banged a little louder. "Hello! Come on, guys, we're on a bit of a sch..."

Someone rose up from behind the shelf. A young punk rocker, a spider-web tattoo on his neck and piercings in nose, spit in my general direction. "You're not robbing this store!"

My eyes went wide under my mask as he leveled the shotgun in his hands at me.


	9. Serving the Community

I built my suit to deflect punches and kicks, and in the course of my criminal career, it's also turned out to be great at absorbing energy blasts. Laser blast, sonic blasts, poison blasts, my multi-layered suit just takes the beating without too much wear and tear. My body, on the other hand, looks like a roadmap of the Carpathian Mountains afterwards, but codeine-laced Tylenol's cheaper than having to stitch up my suit every time.

Still, my ass hit the ground when I saw that pump-action Remington aimed in my general direction. Lasers and plasma is one thing, but bullets HURT. I can shrug off a laser blast without too much pain, but a bullet'll rip through my suit like a knife through butter. Rhino just stood there, one hand raised to protect his face, as the clerk pumped a round into the chamber and took aim at the front door. I covered my head, expecting to catch a stray pellet or two amidst a bunch of falling glass...

"What are you doing?" Rising from next to the clerk, an older Latino man shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the air, towards the ceiling and away from the two of us. Luckily, the weapon didn't go off, but I was careful not to make any sudden moves as I raised back to my feet. "You're gonna shoot the door open and let those things in!"

The clerk kept the shotgun pointed at the ceiling, and motioned towards the two of us with a free hand. "Dude, they're trying to break in! I ain't gonna let them come in here!"

"Son, that's the Rhino. If it wants to come in here, he's gonna come in," the Latino responded with a raised voice, "and that peashooter you got ain't going to stop him, either."

"Actually..." Rhino raised a hand at this point, speaking loudly so he could be heard through the glass. "...we're here to rescue you guys."

Silence for a second. The only sound, aside from the traffic copter, were the moans of the dead. The yelling had agitated them and when I glanced over my shoulder, I felt a little more concerned as they shifted from Mach 0.000001 to Mach 0.000002 in terms of ground speed.

"Pull the other one, Rhino," the clerk said, beginning to lower the shotgun...

"Hey, if we wanted a damn Pepsi, there were plenty of other places to get one along the way!" I got closer to the glass, hoping that, even with my voice amplifier, I could be heard clearly. "We saw you were in trouble on TV and came to rescue you!"

In the defense of the incredulous looking clerk, if I had heard myself saying that to myself, I would have thought it ridiculous too. If it had come from, say, Boomerang or Speed Demon, it would have been downright unbelievable. So I saw where he was coming from, but with the hordes of Hell getting closer, I was not about to argue with this guy. I was going to save him whether or not he wanted it.

Don't tell anyone, but in that moment, I gained a small measure of respect for Spider-Man. If this was the stuff he went through in the course of being a hero and saving the day, I'd take having to put up with the likes of the Trapster or the Wingless Wizard over it in a heartbeat.

"Wasn't there a blonde with you?" So engrossed on the two guys arguing over whether or not to plug me, I had totally forgotten about the blonde until Rhino mentioned it. So yeah, chalk up that it takes being threatened with a shotgun to blank out about the girl. From behind the display, slowly, a young girl peeked over the boxes of cereal, blonde hair set back in a ponytail. "Is that all of you?" Rhino asked.

"Yeah...so how are you going to get us out of here," the Latino asked.

"Simple. We'll open the front doors and we'll clear a path..." That's all I got out before the clerk started to aim his shotgun at me again.

"Screw that, holmes. My ass ain't going outside for anything. I ain't gonna get eaten by one of those things!"

"Look, we cleared a path, and we didn't see a single one of those things until we got here! It's clear down to the West Side Highway." I turned, and thumped my friend on the chest. "We can handle anything that comes our way, but man, we gotta go now!"

The Latino stepped out from behind the display case. I felt a little apprehensive, since he was within 'stop the barrel from pointing at the Shocker' range, but he was moving towards us, and I'd take that one little victory. "Do you have a safe place to hole up, Shocker?"

"Yeah, four blocks away down in a wareh..."

Behind the Latino gentleman, the back door to the 7-11 suddenly flew open. It swung open quickly, and as I watched, two zombies spilled inside, crashing onto the floor. Behind them, two more of the undead stumbled into the store, nearly tripping over their fallen comrades. A high pitched scream came from the blonde, now standing upright, as the ghouls started to move towards her. The clerk, to his credit, spun the shotgun around. He knew how to use it too, setting the stock against his shoulder before opening fire. The head of the zombie bringing up the rear exploded as the buckshot ripped through his skull. But that still left three more...and another one that walked through the now-open door, ready to join the party.

Aleksei reacted at the sound of gunfire. "GET DOWN," the Rhino roared, his voice echoing down the streets and off the glass. Both hands reached out and grabbed the handles to the locked doors. Realizing what my friend was about to do, I stepped out of the way, to the side, as, gritting his teeth, he simply ripped both doors away, metal shrieking as it torn from the frame. Without pausing, Rhino turned around to dispose of the doors...

They had closed the distance fast. Maybe the commotion had agitated them, and the sound of the shotgun had been the final nail in the coffin. One of them, wearing blue surgeon scrubs that bore a long tear down the side, was five feet away from my friend. Never one to get fancy, Rhino got out of danger by bringing one of the doors down over its head. I covered my face as, with a one-handed swing, the glass shattered, driving shards deep into the brain of zombie. It dropped to its knees, the bottom half of the door hanging around his neck like a twisted necklace. Pulling his arm back, Rhino turned and sent the other door through the air down the sidewalk. It clipped one zombie in the shoulder, sending both the ghoul and the door spinning. The wayward metal and glass knocked down two more zombies before finally impacting on the sidewalk.

On my side of the street, the ghoul who had been blocking our path earlier was still taking his time getting to us. I sent a level-two his way, though, and the window of the flower shop cracked from the vibrations. As the zombie fell motionless to the ground, behind me Rhino was shoving the makeshift barricade out of the way, trying to force his way into the store. The Latino gentleman grabbed the girl and moved her towards the barricade, skidding to the side once Rhino began to shove his way through. The clerk stood his ground, unloading another barrage into the oncoming storm. This shot took two of them in the chest, sending them backwards...but another zombie stumbled into the convenience store, four "live" ones and the headless one on the ground.

"Rhino, I'll cover the outside, get them out of there!" The now-doorless entryway was big enough for Aleksei to fit inside, and with a sharp cry, he finished getting the rest of the barricade out of the way. As he went inside to collect the rescueees, I stepped behind him, facing outside, my gloves side-by-side, at the ready to blow away any ghoul who tried to get close. The helicopter's focus had shifted again, and now the bright spotlight focused on me

There I was, alone on the sidewalk, with a parked car flanking me on both sides and Aleksei handling the back. I counted fifteen dark forms shuffling towards me. Their combined moans were audible over the prop wash of the traffic copter, building on each other. If Hell had a choir, this would be what their warm-ups would have sounded like. I brought my gauntlets up, extending my right arm and aiming at the closest ghoul. One blast, and it shuddered slightly before falling to the street. Automatically, I swung around, locking onto the next target. The vibration sent several pearls from its necklace flying as the zombie tumbled backwards. She knocked into another ghoul, which I elected to quickly finish off while it was distracted. Three down, twelve to go.

I had this.

Behind me, I could hear Rhino taking care of business, a roaring cacophony that left damn little to the imagination. The shotgun went off one more time, before being replaced by the sounds of heavy display cases being flung around with ease and reckless abandon. Shattered glass, the rattle of plastic bottles, the crunch of potato chips being stepped upon. I saw it all going down in my mind, along with one cry of "get him off me" coming from the clerk. Part of me wanted to turn around and watch Aleksei, even for a second, be the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop. I quickly squashed that urge by sending a couple more level twos in the horde.

"Herman, we're clear!" Instead of turning around, I took a couple of steps backwards, to let Aleksei stand in front now. Next to him, the clerk still cradled his shotgun, and the blonde (early twenties, definitely a looker) was being held by the Latino man. The three looked out at the advancing horde, with the Latino muttering a small blasphemy under his breath in Spanish.

"You got them all, Aleksei?" My friend smirked, and waved a grey fist at the 7-11. One look at the wrecked convenience store confirmed to me that, for the moment, our rear was covered. "Fantastic. Alright, no need to hang around here anymore. Come on," I said, "it's about four blocks to my place. It's secure, we can hole up and catch our breath."

Again, my plan didn't survive five feet.

I took the lead, putting the three civilians between myself and Rhino, and I hadn't even taken two damn steps before something whizzed past my face. An arrow quivered in the doorframe of the flower shop, just inches from having embedded in my body.

"Alright, Shocker, let the hostages go." Crouched on one of the parked cars, a young girl in a purple-and-black skin-hugging outfit notched another arrow. "That was the only time I'm going to ask," she told me as she pulled back the string on her compound bow.

X

The thick quilted fabric of my mask would obscure the sound, but I was holding my breath, back flat against the brick wall, as the lone ghoul wandered to the top of the escalators…

Ok, I can hear the screaming out there, wondering why the hell I'm switching scenes so abruptly. There I was, spinning a tale of thrilling heroics and chills, and just when the plot thickens and there's the possibility of a major throw down where our dashing main character and his trusty sidekick are falsely accused by a cape…instead, there he is, hiding from one single, solitary zombie when only seconds before in our story he was mowing them down like wheat before a scythe.

My reasoning is this…my damn story, I'll tell it the way I want to tell it. I'm an engineer, not a bard. Call it a cliffhanger, call it creative storytelling, call it 'the Shocker pissing us off.' I'm spinning this web…oh, damn it, now I made a Spider-Man pun. Someone shoot me. No, wait, that happens later on.

Anyway, Marie, me, Houston Street Station, zombie. I'm rock still, doing my best impersonation of a granite statue, watching this staggering form in the convex security mirror hanging on the wall. It moved with jerky steps, shoving one foot down before swinging its other leg around to join it. One arm seemed stuck in a bent position, clutching at its chest, while the other moved freely, batting around the air with each motion it made. I couldn't tell which way the damn thing was looking, and its steps took it perpendicular to the escalators. Slowly, it crossed the station entrance, taking its sweet time. It wasn't looking down here, but something drew it to this subway stop. Maybe this was on the guy's commute uptown every day, or he lived around here. I had noticed, when they weren't…agitated is the word Boomerang used. When they weren't agitated, the ghouls seemed to default to what had been their normal, everyday lives. They hung out around their apartments, their places of work, or where they died, whatever was "important" to them. The good news was, Lower Manhattan…people worked there. After 9/11, a lot of people left the area, forgoing it as a place to live. So, after hours and after the zombie apocalypse, this section of Manhattan was pretty clear. Now, Jersey on the other hand…the joke about 'Hell on Earth' was probably fact out in the dense suburbs. So I just had one zombie to deal with at the moment, and its was taking its time, like there wasn't a care in the world beyond ripping into someone's intestines. I had to bite back the urge to mumble "c'mon, c'mon." Any small noise would risk grabbing its attention…

I looked back over my shoulder. Marie was peeking out from behind the Metrocard machine. I carefully held out my hand, doing my best to convey a 'stay still and be quiet' aura. To my surprise, she nodded, and pulled back into the small alcove while I put my attention back onto the zombie.

Several seconds, minutes, a New York minute, whatever, it passed slowly to me. My body wasn't used to standing this still, especially in the frantic moments of the past few days. But, in the end, I'm a living human being, and it was a dumb corpse. It wandered off as quietly as it had shown up, just a small moan echoing down the stairs towards me. I counted to sixty, making damn sure it or any of its friends weren't going to come back, before sliding away from the wall. Moving as quickly as I could, as quietly as I could, I made my way to the Metrocard machines. Marie's blue eyes peeked out as me as I put a finger to my lips, and took her by the wrist. "Move," I told the Frenchwoman, "we're almost there."

Even taking pains to be quiet, I winced at every noise our feet made as our shoes slapped against the stone floor of Houston Street Station. For a born and bred New Yorker, being in an empty subway station…even late at night, and I'm talking 'past last call' late…you could find a homeless guy on a bench. Or a transit cop calmly walking his beat. Or a newspaper stand owner getting set for the morning rush hour. To me, Houston Street was a concrete tomb, and Marie and I were doing our best not to disturb the dead.

We made our way around a kiosk, towards the Second Avenue platform on the south side of the station. At the far end, near the front of the subway car parked on the rails, Rhino's face broke into a grin as we approached my friend and the group of survivors around him. His massive gray form creaked slightly as he stood up. "Herman," he said softly, "I'm glad you made it."

"Glad I made it too," I replied as I went to clasp his hand…

"You don't want to do that," my friend responded. I cocked my head quizzically at him. To answer me, he simply lifted one of his hands. The "skin" covering his fist was streaked with red, and a few gray flakes stood out in the long swaths.

I knew what it was without having to ask. Before I inquired with Rhino as to how he came about to have blood and bone all over his hands, I turned to the survivors. Two of them, a young man in a Nets cap and a older woman wearing a blouse stained with dirt (and worse) were sitting on one of the nearby benches, side-by-side. Two other survivors, a middle-aged couple we had picked up just outside a T-Mobile store, were having a quiet conversation near one of the pillars. They used soft words, as opposed to harsh whispers. Whispers carried further then muted discussion. That fact brought to you by Kraven the Hunter, who I had the…pleasure…of working with just before he offed himself. The guy might have preached "The Most Dangerous Game" as his Bible, but that didn't mean a schlub like me couldn't learn something about urban stealth once I shut up and listened. Decent guy, code of honor, and I'd have more respect for him if he hadn't shot himself in order to get the last word in with Spider-Man. I hated Spider-Man as much as the next guy, but not enough to commit suicide just to get one over on the wall-crawler.

The fifth member of the "I survived 'Night of the Living Dead LARP'" club came forward. "Found yourself another wayward citizen, Shocker," Father Mark Jacobson said as he hobbled towards Marie and myself. "Hello, child," he said, extending a hand towards Marie. "Mark Jacobson, at your service," he introduced himself with a quiet voice.

She hesitantly took his offered hand. "Marie Jaloux," the Frenchwoman replied. "Is…is this a rescue station?"

The good Father shook his head. "No, Marie. It's a way station on the way to one, however. We've just been waiting for you to arrive before we moved on."

"How's the leg, Father?" His left thigh was tied tightly with strips from a white t-shirt taken from a kiosk up the street. A few drops of blood were evident against the color-free cloth.

"I'll manage," Father Jacobson replied. "Thank the Lord it was just jagged metal and not jagged teeth."

The Lord, Yaweh, Allah, Vishnu, Reggie Jackson, whoever. "Father, could you take Marie and explain to her what's going on and where we're heading? We'll be moving out in a few minutes."

"Of course, Shocker. Come, Marie, I'll introduce you to everyone." She was a bit wide-eyed as Marie took the priest's arm. Jacobson led her over to the couple, and I watched the four of them begin to go through the motions of introduction.

"Alright, Aleksei," I quietly said once I was sure Marie was distracted, "what happened?"

Aleksei leaned close to me. "One of those things came up from the tracks. Sarah," he said, nodding towards the woman quietly sitting on the bench, "saw it and almost screamed. She made enough noise, though, two more of them showed up." He looked down at his hands, opening one up to show me the dark stained palm. "I got two of them, but the third managed to crawl up on the platform. I had to…" Rhino held his hands out and slowly moved them together. "He was too close to punch, and anything else would have been too loud. I tried to clean the gunk off, but…"

The thought of my friend squashing a zombie's head like a grape made me wince, especially as I (involuntarily) imagined the sound. "Any others show up," I asked once the shiver had finished running down my spine, "or was it just the three of them?"

"Just those three, Herman." Rhino glanced over at the tracks. The subway train had come to a stop at the platform and left about four feet of clearance at the southern end, the end we were going to use to move everyone back to TriBeCa. "I don't like that. They've never been in the subways before. They weren't transit guys, either, at least they weren't dressed like them."

"Great. That would be the last damn thing we need," I sighed. "The food was all up top. If they figured out that the food's all down here now, then…"

Rhino finished my thought. "…then this time should be our last time we stick our necks out of the warehouse, Herman. Unless we want to try hotwiring a big truck or something."

"That'll attract too much attention," I replied. "And I'd like to keep the number of ghouls pounding on our doors to the smallest amount possible." My mind worked for a few seconds before I continued. "Ok. There was a Walgreen's up the road. I'm gonna grab some stuff from there and then head back to the warehouse. If this is our last trip out, I want to make sure we're good on a couple of things in case they take their sweet time coming to get us."

Rhino, looking down at me, shook his head in disagreement. "I ain't a fan of waiting here much longer, Herman…"

I reached out and squeezed his stone shoulder. "You're not going to wait. I want you to take everyone and start walking. Get everyone back to the warehouse as quickly as you can, before more of those things start showing up in the subway." I watched my friend's face take on an argumentative look, and quickly cut him off to avoid a long discussion. "Hey, Aleksei, I'll be fine. We need more insulin and a couple of other things anyway, and I can get it quietly and quickly if I'm by myself. Smash and grab, no screwing around, I'll hotwire a car and get back to TriBeCa before you know it."

"Herman, you just said getting a truck…"

"A car, Aleksei. A small car, little noise, lots of speed, and I'll get in through the sewers." My hand was still on his shoulder as I looked at him through my mask. "We won't get a shot at this again. But we need to get these survivors back to the warehouse before too many of those things figure out we're using the subway as the Underground Railroad for the living."

I knew my friend still wanted to argue. During the past four days, anytime I had gone off solo, Rhino had worried and shown concern. Hell, it was reassuring to know he cared and didn't want me to kick the proverbial bucket. But right now, in case of cannibalistic humanoid underground dead, Rhino was the man to handle them. The third rail was still hot, and that meant any fights or struggles would be in close quarters so no one still living got hurt. That meant Rhino, pun intended, would have to lead that charge, since one vibration from me could risk a tunnel collapse. Plus, the big guy could survive a step or two on the third rail. I knew it…and he knew it. He just didn't have to like it.

"I don't like it," he said, reading my mind, "but if you think it's the right thing to do, Herman, I'll do it."

"My man." I slapped him good naturedly on his upper arm. "You want anything from the drug store? Hershey's bar or something?"

"Just get your ass back in one piece," Rhino requested. He stepped away, and made his way over to where Marie, Father Jacobson, and the married couple had been getting to know one another. "Hey, we're gonna head out," I heard him inform them. As he explained the situation, I moved away from them. Leaning against one of the iron girders supporting the ceiling, I reached up and unsnapped my mask. The stale air of the empty station felt wonderful on my skin as I pulled my mask off. Everything I saw, heard, breathed, smelled, and tasted was filtered through my mask and the dazzling array of electronics I managed to cram inside the quilted fabric. SHIELD databases, audio enhancers, night-vision, all wired into my outfit. Wonderful and incredible and really handy, but sometimes, I needed fresh, clean air. Down here in the subway station, the smell of the decaying, burning city was absent. The sweat on my skin evaporated as the cooler air touched my face. My hair was matted down and soaked. I hadn't had a shower in four days, and probably smelled pretty damn ripe. But that had been Boomerang's idea…ahead of myself, sorry. I'll come back to that point later in the tale.

My head was leaned back, against the steel pillar, as I lost myself in thought for a moment. I really didn't want to head back up, to be honest. By this point, any thoughts of being a hero or being a Boy Scout had drifted into the realm of involuntary action rationalized with a heavy dose of sarcasm. In a way, I was relieved that this would be the last time I (and Rhino) risked the streets of Manhattan. The risk vs. reward factor had gotten too skewed against us. Too many zombies, not enough citizens in need of rescue. And luck was going to turn against us at some point…

"Mr. Shocker?"

I opened my weary eyes. Next to me, Marie stood, hands held in front of her. She spoke in a low voice. "We're leaving now. You...are not coming with us?"

Sighing, I pushed away from the girder, stretching my arms behind me to loosen the tense muscles in my back. "No. There are still some things I need to get done while I'm here. Aleksei will see you back safe."

She smiled quietly at that statement. "He is so big, like an elephant! I know he will keep me safe, like you did." What she did next took me a bit by surprise, as she leaned forward and gently kissed me on my cheek. Cool lips felt refreshing against my grimy, sweat-soaked skin. And if any of you out there are imagining that I was blushing...well, I wouldn't have put up too much of an argument. "Thank you, my hero, for savings me from those horrible creatures," Marie said as she pulled back. "Be...careful and safe on the streets."

I replied with a nod, and a smile on my own. She turned and made her way to the end of the subway platform. Rhino was already standing on the track, and all I could make out was a gray fist gently helping the survivors down onto the rails. The good Father was second-to-last, as Maria assisted Rhino from the platform. Finally, Marie gently sat down, legs hanging over the side, and two hands took her by the waist, and with a lift, Rhino took her out of sight and on the way back to the warehouse in TriBeCa.

Game face. I pulled my mask back on, and activated the magnetic clasps with a thought. Thirty seconds. That was how much "head start" I'd give Rhino and the other five before heading back up to Houston Street proper, in case some ghoul got curious about a dapper-looking man in brown-and-yellow emerging from the subway steps and decided to see what the underground attraction was.

Now, I know some of you out there, probably the same guys who didn't care for my use of literary technique earlier, are a few seconds away from tearing my head off (verbally, not cannibalisticly) about using the New York Port Authority's tax-supported tunnels as a transit port. "It's dark! It's cramped! You'd be sitting ducks if a bunch of zombies decided to take the Seventh Avenue Line uptown!"

And my response would be...you're right.

Now, Rhino's a New York boy, much like myself. He may be from Eastern Europe, but the big guy picked up the Big Apple's tricks pretty damn quick. That includes figuring out the subway system. For years, us bad guys used the subway to get around without catching too much attention. Just showing up on the streets dressed in our gear was a sign for some superhero to show up and collar us, especially in Rhino's case, where his gear didn't come with a "removable" option.

There are so many warrens and tunnels under Manhattan...how else could a guy like the Mole Man could stay on the lam for so man years? Just carry a compass, keep track of whether you were moving uptown or downtown, and you could get anywhere on the island without attracting the attention of a guy like Daredevil or the boys in Code Blue.

So we have the means of travel, but what about the flesh eaters trying to get a piece of yours truly? Surely the subway system would attract some of their ilk, especially the bunch that seemed to enjoy leaping out of dark places, hands outstretched. Any sane person would avoid the subway unless they absolutely had to. For the first day or two, that was my train of thought. Keep to the open spaces, where my vibro-blasts won't take down walls and have enough room to spread out and put down as many zombies as they could catch. And avoid the tight, cramped, closed quarters, where one-on-one fights could quickly turn into seven-on-one fights.

It took the non-stop news cycle to change my way of thinking. 24 hours of the chaos and murder that was sweeping the globe. The official term was "epidemic," because, according to Dr. Reed Richards, the brains were looking at the situation from the point of view of a virus, a bug that brought the dead back to life. The things that got up, from hospital beds, from pools of blood on the street, and staggered out of the houses and apartments of America, they all had several things in common. One, they craved flesh. No matter what kind of heavy artillery was thrown their way, no matter how thick the door was between them and their snack, they never, ever, ever gave up. Blow three limbs off and they'll hop on their fourth. Lop a head off, and it'll sit on the ground, snapping its teeth at you. As Rhino pointed out, you needed a shot to the head, be it a bullet, a blast, or a blow, something to damage the brain and put the bastard back into the grave. Anything else, and they'll still come to get you.

Which led me to point two. They'll come to get you. They'll go to where the food is.

Notice how I've been doing my best to be stealthy and tactful this lovely fall evening? Not exactly my normal operating mode. These things...they're dumb, but they know when a human's around. Zombies can't work a car, or fire a gun, or work an elevator. But we can. And the second a zombie hears a car going down the street...or a voice over a bullhorn...they know there's a source of food nearby, and they'll let every other thing in a block now about it by moaning. I'm not a zoologist, but the term "predator pack" comes to mind. Remember Central Park? Right now, that place is the biggest rescue station on Manhattan. It's big, square, it's easily blocked off, and the Avengers and every other cape in New York City is there trying to get people to the camp, and from there, off the island. About 7,000 people there, last I heard.

And probably five times that many times zombies pushing at the barricades, trying to get inside. They know what waits for them, if somehow they force their way inside.

They go where the food is. By the Law of Inverses...they don't go where the food ISN'T.

Remember the reasons I listed above, about how sane people avoided the subway system? That meant that there wasn't any food down in the stations and tunnels. So, aside from a few ghouls acting on some spark of memory from when they breathed, the tunnels were pretty free of zombies. Which meant the small number we came across got easily dealt with before they could alert more of their friends.

With that in mind, Rhino and I were able to move across Manhattan without too much difficulty. More importantly, anyone we convinced to join our merry band of brave idiots...some of them freaked, and I can't blame them. But after a bit, being out of sight...and out of earshot...of the Manhattan horde reassured them. Having a seven-foot tall tank on point helped as well. I was surprised, the first time we had to go underground after a dust-up with Captain Marvel (this one was the black woman with energy based powers), at how well Rhino knew the tunnels. The tunnels were big enough that my friend could move about comfortably without getting penned in, and aside from hitting the occasional train during rush hour...well, the trains would usually hit HIM...he used them to great effect. Taught me a trick or two as well.

The subway got shut down on the first night by the New York Port Authority. The outbreak had started during the tail end of rush hour, when most people had either been home or close to home. In New York City, though, that still meant a lot of passengers on the subway or the PATH trains. After the massacre at Penn Station, and with the city trying to keep a lid on the panic, for the first time that I could remember, the New York City Subway system went off-line. Blizzards, hurricanes, blackouts, and even 9/11, there was always someone in the subway getting people to where they needed to go, even if it wasn't by train. The train operators and station personnel and transit cops were just as eager to get back to their loved ones, and aside from the usual union squawking, no one really complained too loudly. Down here in Lower Manhattan, after the panic of that first night, the system has been empty. The stations emptied so far, a couple of them, like Houston Street, didn't get locked up. Good news for myself and Aleksei...

Crap. It's been longer then thirty seconds. You know, one of the problems with being a bad guy is our tendency to monologue. Superheroes have it, too, but us bad guys, in the time it takes US to ramble, the good guy's broken free and ready to kick the snot out of us. When good guys ramble, it's to rub their superiority in our face. Unless you're Mysterio. I don't know how he pulls it off, but I've seen the guy give full-blown dramatic monologues in the middle of fighting Spider-Man.

No yelling or commotion from the tunnel that Rhino, Marie, the Reverend, and everyone else left on. I'll take that as a good sign. Suit integrity's complete. Gloves are charged. The Walgreen's I'm thinking of is three blocks away, and there should be...

They pounce on me as I turn the corner. One's hands explode away from my shoulder, while the other brushes against my chest before the contact plates go off. I shove the two of them away, knocking them to the ground, and raise a glove for a quick level-one to their skulls when movement up ahead catches my eye.

About seven zombies are stumbling down the escalators towards the heart of the station. In the middle of the pack, holding on to the rail to keep upright, one of them drags a broken leg behind it. Odds are it's the one I saw in the mirror earlier. Maybe it came back and heard something, or something fired in its slow-to-necrotize brain, or probably it's just the universe throwing dumb luck its way so the bastards could come rain on my parade.

Alright. Nine zombies total. I could just run past them, and they'd follow me like good little lemmings. But if anyone of them don't...the odds of them making it to the platform, jumping down onto the tracks, and managing enough speed to come up behind Aleksei and the survivors before they reach safety is ridiculously low.

Which is why my next action is to raise my fists and simultaneously fire a level-one blast into each zombie at my feet. I've been in the game long enough to know that when the long odds are against you, that's when they pay off. As they both slump motionless to the tile floor, I'm stepping forward. The seven remaining ghouls are spread out enough that I can take them down one at a time...

Two minutes later, I'm climbing back onto Houston Street. Nine dead zombies are laid out below me in the subway station, tiny trickles of dark blood from their ears and nose pooling on the floor. It's three blocks to the Walgreen's. There's a couple of ghouls staggering about the surface. One or two are heading towards the subway station, and when I arrive on the scene, they raise their arms and stagger towards me. After taking care of both of them, I start walking. I'm not in too much of a hurry, and I'm not making that much effort to remain stealthy this time out. Let the idiots see me walking. I'm not too keen on using myself as bait, but a ghoul following after me is one less ghoul stumbling down in the subway.


	10. Staring Down the Shaft of an Arrow

She was rock still, crouched on top of the car. Perfect poise, perfect balance, perfect form. Poetry in non-motion. The prop wash from the helicopter made her black hair flutter in the air. Any other time, I might turned on by the way she looks.

But she's in that position pointing an arrow at me. The drawstring is taut, motionless, her eyes locked on mine. "Shocker, don't make me shoot you. I'm not in the mood to waste arrows."

"Look, Hawkeye..." I began.

To clarify things, this young raven-haired girl was the second Hawkeye. The first one had vanished about two years ago. Most people claimed he was dead, a few even going so far as to take credit for it. Which meant he'll pop up in a few months, good as new, and whip some poor villain's butt. But for now, this girl had appeared after his disappearance, and picked up where he had left off. I hadn't had the misfortune of crossing paths with her until this evening. And with the world going to hell, it fell upon me, Herman Schultz, to be God's personal gag reel for the evening by running into an Avenger at the worst possible time.

"...this ain't what it looks like. They're not hostages, they're people Rhino and I just rescued!"

"I wasn't born yesterday, Shocker. I don't have the time to drag you to a police station. Let them go, and I'll let you walk."

Let them...let them go WHERE? I don't know if Hawkeye had noticed, but there were still ten or fifteen zombies stumbling around. Was she going to just walk them someplace safe? And if so, where?

I wanted to argue with her. After all, I had been the idiot who put my life on the line to make this rescue. I didn't feel like I was looking for pride or recognition, but where was she a few minutes ago when Rhino and I plowed our way through the crowd? Where was she when Rhino was busting the joint open and cracking open heads to get the three people with us out of the store? Again, the Shocker does all the legwork and someone else comes along to screw it all up...

"They did rescue us!" The Latino gentleman had to yell to be heard from where he stood. "There were a whole bunch of these things attacking us, and the two of them got us out! If it wasn't for them, we'd be sitting ducks!"

The dark glasses Hawkeye wore helped to hide her expression. If she was mulling things over and, you know, listening to the civilian, I couldn't tell. After too many brief seconds, she responded. "They're still criminals, sir. Back away, and I'll make sure they don't hurt you."

Oh, for the love...

Sidebar. One of the things I couldn't freakin' stand about heroes is the concept of "bad guys can never do anything good." I'm not saying that rescuing a kitten out of a tree (Stilt-Man) or opening a fire hydrant for kids during a heat wave (Aqueduct) or buying ice cream for a bank you're hold hostage (that one's all me) makes you a Boy Scout. But sometimes...bad guys do good things just to do them. Not often. But we were kids once...or maybe we just like kittens.

Right now, Aleksei and I were standing outside a wide-open 7-11. We had no duffel bags of cash from the safe. We weren't carrying pallets of bottled water. And I didn't snag a Klondike from the freezer. Did Hawkeye really think we broke into the place and rescued a pierced counter jockey, a blonde, and a middle-aged Latino man as part of some grand diabolic scheme that happened to coincide with the dead coming back to life?

Odds were? Yes. Yes, she did. Even though, right now, there's no one guarding the Lexus dealership, we had robbed a 7-11 to kidnap civilians willing to come along with us.

"Ok, everyone be cool," I said, putting my hands out to the side. "No one do anything stupid or rash, we can talk this out like adults."

The blonde stepped forward, standing beside me. "Ma'am, he's telling the truth! We were trapped in the store and a bunch of those creeps busted open the back door! If it wasn't for the Rhino ripping open the doors, we'd be dead!"

Again, couldn't make out if Hawkeye was processing this new information repeated for a second time. What I could make out was the crowd of zombies getting closer to the car she was crouched on. Part of me wanted to warn her. Part of me knew she wouldn't believe me. And the third part said "fine. Let her be lunch..."

"Sorry, ma'am, but these two men are known and wanted criminals. They're dangerous and will end up getting you hurt of killed."

Oh, screw this.

"Aleksei, when I say run, you take them and..."

The trash can sailed over my head mid-sentence. It arced in front of me, falling between myself and Hawkeye. I heard, over the helicopter, the twang of the bowstring as Hawkeye reflexively let her arrow fly. As the green-metal can bounced on the asphalt, I could see the purple arrow sticking out of the side. I also could see Hawkeye quickly pulling another arrow from her quiver, ready to restring and reshoot at us.

"MOVE!" The mass of footfalls behind me let me know what we going on without having to look. The group of four, three survivors and Rhino, were getting the hell out of Dodge. For once, civilian logic went the way of the villains...go with the people who saved your life instead of the other guy. The question that instantly went through my mind, watching Hawkeye set the arrow on her bowstring...was she going to shoot at me, the target right in front of her, or take a shot at the rapidly retreating Rhino?

Well I do a better imitation of a pincushion then Aleksei. And behind her, maybe fifteen feet away, the two closest zombies were definitely locked on to her, slavering at the thought of tender flesh.

Multi-tasking's an underrated skill among the criminal community. Everyone thinks in a linear fashion. You do A, then you do B, then you do C. I'm cleverer then that...stop snickering. When you work with redundant wiring and fail-safe alarm systems, you're dealing with the potential for cascading failures when one link in the chain breaks. So, with that engineering genius I mentioned earlier, I think big picture. Do A and B at the same time, THEN do C.

So, as she pulled back the bowstring on her weapon, I raised my gloves and put a level-three vibro-blast into the side of the car she was standing on.

The old Hawkeye would have flipped into the air, managed to set the arrow on the string, and shot me in the thigh before landing so gracefully that the Latverian judge would have given him about a 9.0. This girl wasn't that Hawkeye. As the car moved underneath her, she lost her balance. Her hands, which had been pulling back the drawstring, slipped as she tried to steady herself, and she fell forward. The arrow (I'll give her credit, she had "reloaded" pretty quick) fell off the string, clattering to the street, soon followed by the young archer. The asphalt knocked the wind out of her, and her bow fell out of her hand, landing just out of her reach.

As for the aforementioned car? A level three wasn't going to send it airborne, but it damn sure slid that son-of-a-bitch sideways. Right into the advancing crowd of undead.

Hey, to me, five undead are a crowd...and company, and too close for comfort, and enough...

Christ. Note to self, leave the stupid quips to Spider-Man. One heroic rescue attempt and I'm already making bad jokes.

Anyway, car, zombies, metal, flesh, vibro-blast, knocked down like bowling pins, you get the picture. One of them fell down as the back bumper him. The rear tire slid over his leg with a satisfying crunch, pinning him to the ground. The front end barely missed a zombie on the left, sliding just past its hip before coming to a stop. What had once been a young girl with pig-tails hadn't even noticed two tons of Detroit steel and glass coming towards it, never flinched or tried to move the hell out of the way. It was locked on a direct course towards Hawkeye, who was now reaching out for her dropped bow...

The whine of my vibro-smasher stayed her hand. "Don't try it, Hawkeye," I growled. Now the shoe was on the other foot...and it felt damn good. Bad guys, we live for moments like this; getting the drop or the advantage on a cape. She was glaring up at me, top lip pulled back in a snarl, and it just made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. "Stay down, and don't even think about going for that bow."

The zombie was getting closer. It managed to let out a high-pitched moan, and the way Hawkeye turned her head, I knew she heard it. Good. Keep her attention split. She turned back to me, and I knew she was thinking about how to grab her bow, shoot it, and then shoot me. If it was only that thing she was going to put an arrow in, I would have let her play Robin Hood until Maid Marion came home. But...

"What's your angle, Shocker? Going to hold them hostage? Maybe use them as bait or something?"

My shoulders slumped as I sighed. "Hawkeye," I said, keeping both gloves pointed at her, "didn't you hear a damn word myself, Rhino, or, how about, those civilians said? We rescued them. Rescued. Romeo Echo Sierra Charlie Umbrella Echo Delta'd."

"You never were an altruist, Shocker." Hawkeye's finger crept towards the bow. Damn it, I'm pointing my vibro-smashers at her, both of them. Does she think she's that fast?

"Maybe I'm donating my time to charity tonight," I shot back. The zombie was closer now, and it really was time for me to go. If I got out of here now, she'd have plenty of time to turn around the get the guy behind her and hopefully I can get out of bowshot before she has to turn and deal with me. Carefully, I took a step backwards, away from Hawkeye. "Alright, I'm just gonna walk away, Hawkeye, no harm, no foul, ok?" Another step, my gloves still pointed at her head as she lay on the street.

She started to talk. "Can't let you leave, Sho..."

"Oh, would you just shut it and listen!" My vibro-smashers came upwards, and I ripped off a level two. The zombie's arm had just started to come up when my blast sent her pigtails blowing in the breeze and her body tumbling backwards. Even as her form was falling back to the street, I aimed my hands back at...

She was crouched, bow in hand, arrow nocked, pointing at my chest as I brought my gloves to bear on her. Damn, she was fast. To her credit, she didn't say a word, but kept her eyes on me, her arrow drawn back and aimed.

I don't know how long we stared at each other, amidst shattered windows, wrecked cars, and the sounds of the living dead, but I was the one who broke the silence between us. "I just saved your life, Hawkeye, and I'm cashing it in now. I'm walking away. I'm going to hole up in my hideout, and do my best to avoid what's probably the end of the world." I took two, three steps backwards, away from her, a very quick glance over my shoulder letting me see that there wasn't a hungry corpse behind me.

"Shocker..."

"No. No, don't say a damn word. Just get the hell off the streets before you become a snack." A few more steps took me out of her line of sight, and then my ass pounded pavement back the way I came, up Degrosses Street. It took me a second to readjust to the darkness, after being in the harsh glare of the news helicopter, but the way was just as clear as we arrived. Part of me waiting for an arrow to hit me, either a net arrow, an arrow to knock me unconscious, or something, but by the time I got to the West Side Highway, having passed by four or five zombies, it was obvious she wasn't going to come after me.

Which was good, because I needed to get back to the warehouse. After the events of the previous half-hour...

...I really needed to take a leak.

X

"Woohoo! Mate, that was awesome!" Boomerang slammed the door behind me, holding two cold bottles in his hand. "You made Hawkeye look like a namby, Herman! Nice job!"

"Hold that thought," I managed to say between gritted teeth. I bolted immediately for the bathroom, managing to get my vibro-smashers off along the way. I dropped them on the workbench before almost diving into the bathroom. I'll spare you the gory details, but they're best summed by the following word.

"."

I buckled and re-magnetized myself back up, and after washing my hands (it's important to keep one's vibro-smashers germ-free), I stepped back into the warehouse. I breathed deep after removing my mask. To me, there's something about...the way an industrial area smells. It could be a workshop, or a warehouse, or a truck stop. Something about sawdust, grease, and diesel fuel, I can't explain it.

"How's my nose," I asked, tilting my head up a bit so Fred could get a good look as he approached.

"Don't see any blood. Suit did its' job tonight?"

"Like a charm if I don't got a nosebleed. Doesn't take a big blast to put one of those things on the ground, anyway. It's more accuracy and range then power."

Boomerang handed me one of the bottles. Screw breaking the seal, I think as I chug a good half of the bottle. Heroics are thirsty work. "Mate, I still think you're a crazy son of a gun, but I'll admit, what you did to Hawkeye..."

I lowered the bottle from my lips once I realized what Boomerang had said. "Wait...how did you know...you saw it?"

"Me and the rest of America." Across from my workshop area, the flatscreen TV was still showing ABC 7, but this was the national feed, with Charles Gibson speaking. The clerk was already sitting on the couch, his back to me, focused on the images. I could feel my eyes widen as I comprehended what was being shown on the screen...

"RHINO AND SHOCKER IN THRILLING RESCUE."

"You're kidding me," I remembered murmuring. I mean, yeah, I was there, it was a rescue, and it was quite thrilling. But I walked closer to the TV, beer still gripped in my hand, watching an ariel view of Rhino smashing one of the 7-11's doors over the head of a zombie. And then...the scene cut to me, with Hawkeye on the ground, blasting the ghoul behind her in the face.

"...incredible footage, shot about fifteen minutes ago, by a traffic copter in Lower Manhattan," the smooth, professional tones of the longtime ABC anchor reported. "Villains the Shocker and the Rhino engaging in an act of heroism as they rescued civilians from a trapped convenience store, as well as the Shocker keeping the young archer Hawkeye out of harm's way with a daring energy blast..."  
"Vibro-blast," I whispered.

"Mate, they just used the word 'Shocker' and 'heroism' in the same sentence." Boomerang clapped me on the back of the neck, laughing. "Congratulations, hero." He clinked my bottle with his, and took a pull of the (to him) watered down American beer.

Hero?  
Wow. That actually felt pretty good.

Fred was right. Those words (and 'Rhino,' where credit's due) never go together. Hearing it for the first time...

"I guess they are walking corpses," Fred said. "While you were gone, the CDC and SHIELD made it official. We got dead people, Herman. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living." He finished off his beer, eyes locked on mine. "We're in a world of trouble."

"Yeah, man. And they're..." I took a swig of my beer. "...relentless is the word. They just don't stop coming, Fred. This one...how much of it made it on TV?"

"All of it, mate, from when you two showed up to when you ran away," he needled me. "Either ABC told the government to take a flying leap, or someone was asleep on the switch." My friend studied me for a second. "Let me guess, the girl who wouldn't stay down?"

"Fred, she didn't have elbows left when I finished with her. I blasted her three times, and I'm talking dead-on shots, not glancing ones, until Aleksei reminded me to go for the head. And you saw the car trick, right?"  
"Now THAT was a piece of beauty, Herman, two birds, one stone."

"Yeah, well...the zombie I missed with the car? Didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Even Luke Cage would have stepped to one side..." I finished the last of the beer and handed the empty bottle back to Fred. "And going to the back of the store to break in...I don't know. Maybe, when it comes to finding food, they're geniuses."

"Reassuring thought, mate." Fred took my empty to the trash as I headed over to the kitchen. Rhino was standing nearby, arms crossed, and nodded as I approached.

"Any problems making it back, Herman?"

"None. Clear and easy once Hawkeye saw the light."  
"Mr. Shocker, thank you." The blonde had been leaning against the counter after drying off her face, and extended a hand towards me. "I owe you my life."

"Um...thanks," I said. It took me a few more seconds before I responded with a firm, but dumbfounded handshake. "Don't forget Aleksei."

"I haven't," she said.

"Yes...thank you, sir." The Latino gentleman put his hand out, and the shock was less evident the second time around as I pumped twice and let go. "If it wasn't for you, we would have been trapped by the zombies who broke in. We are in your debt."

"...think nothing of it," I got out. "I couldn't...we couldn't," I corrected myself with a nod towards Aleksei, "just sit by and do nothing. We had to help."

Before, blowing from of the warehouse like a bat out of hell, I didn't have time to think about why. Now, with the threat passed and everyone safe...I didn't even ask myself 'why.' Just seeing the look of relief on the faces of the blonde and the Latino man, that was reason enough. Knowing that they would have been toast without our help...it wasn't 100% heroic and altruistic, maybe. But I felt good. The world was going to hell, and I did something good. Fantastic.

"And now, sir...I must ask you, am I free to leave?"

I remember blinking at his question. "Um...leave? Are...are you sure you want to do that, Mr..."

"Robert Prosario," he said. "And yes, I have to leave. I appreciate you saving my life, but I can't stay here, Mr. Shocker." He motioned towards the metal door leading outside. "I was on my way home from work with Ashley..." The blonde waved. "...when we got hit by the other car. We were going to meet my family and get ready to leave the island, like when the Hulk came through last summer and they evacuated Manhattan."

I looked over at Ashley. "Are you related?"

"Oh, no, no, he's just my co-worker. My apartment's up past 92nd Street and I didn't want to try to get back there alone," she replied. "But...I'm fine with staying here, if that's what you're going to do, Mr. Shocker."

"I was planning on it," I found myself. "I mean...we got food, water, and the walls are pretty sturdy. Beats being out on the streets right now by a long shot."

"Yeah, it's your standard hideout," Rhino chimed in, "great for when you need to lie low and hide out for a while."

"I'm sure it would be, Mr. Shocker," Robert answered, "but I cannot sit here while my family is waiting for me. The last time I talked to them was before I left work, and that was a few hours ago. I don't want them to worry, or worse, go out looking for me when, as you said, the streets aren't safe."

That was a good point in his favor. Normally, I wouldn't give a damn if this guy wanted to go stick his neck out. As long as my neck wasn't the one on the line, most everyone else could fish or cut bait for all I cared. He knew the risks, and if Robert wanted to become a meal for some shuffling zombie, I normally wouldn't have cared all that much. But...didn't Aleksei and I just do the same damn thing, going out onto the dangerous streets to make sure people were safe? And that was for total strangers, not for family.

"You know it's a death wish, right, Robert?"

"Herman, that's what Fred said to you earlier tonight, but you went out, anyway." Aleksei had gotten a bottle of water while we had been talking, the small plastic container almost lost within his massive fist. "If he wants to go do it, let him, he knows the score."  
"I know, Mr. Rhino...I know. But I can't sit here and let my family possible die waiting for me. Thank you for everything, but I must go." Robert started to push past me...

I grabbed his wrist. "You can't get in touch with them? You tried?"

"I just tried a few minutes ago." I let go of his forearm as he continued to speak, holding up a small Blackberry. "I kept getting a recorded message, from the phone company, about all the lines being tied up."

I didn't want to do what I was about to do. I really didn't. Yeah, I enjoyed the positive feelings and general sense of well-being my earlier actions had brought me...but let's face it, dumb luck had a strong supporting role in the whole 7-11 rescue. And I'm an engineer. I don't believe in luck. I deal in numbers and absolutes. Fact, the undead were walking around Manhattan, as well as the rest of the world. Fact, nothing at the moment seemed to stop them, or even slow them down, other than a shot to the head. Fact, they saw humans as a source of food. Fact, they seemed to keep going after their food, no matter what. Fact, right now, we were in a secure, easily fortified location away from the busier parts of Manhattan. Fact, we were safe.

Fact, Herman Schultz is about to pull another dumb move.

"Where's your place?"

"Up on Versey Street," the Latino answered.

"Come on." I motioned for Robert to follow me over to my workbench. Once there, I scrounged for a couple of seconds, moving bolts and tools out of the way to find what I was looking for. "Write...write your family a note, saying you're ok and that I'm a friend who's coming to rescue them." Robert, even though he took the pen and paper from the workbench, stared at me in confusion. "Look, if I show up at your place, your family's gonna think I'm there to case the joint or something. You give me...a letter of introduction, something that'll tell them I'm cool and not going to hurt them."  
"I..."

I cut Robert off. "Come on, we don't got time, just write something." I grabbed my vibro-smashers from the workbench, and stepped away. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Fred shaking his head as I initialized my gloves. Full charge. Good.

I didn't mention it before, so I might as well put it in here now. I have a charger for my gloves on my workbench, and in a pinch, I can plug directly into a wall outlet. But, in case I'm cut off from my hideout for a long period of time, my gloves have their own built-in recharging mechanism. I based it off the concept of the self-winding watch that uses the wearer's momentum from swinging and moving their arms to keep ticking. It's not much, and if I go completely dry in the field, we'd be talking hours to charge back up to full blast capability. But it's what lets me throw around level one and level two blasts without too much worry.

"A few minutes of good press, you think you're an Avenger," Boomerang said sadly. "Come on, Herman, once is luck, twice is foolish."

"Fred, I'd agree with you under most any other circumstance." My vibro-smashers hummed slightly as I turned to face him. "Look, I risked my butt to save three people, and after doing that, one of them wants to go back out there anyway. Sorry, not after all of that. I'm batting a thousand for once."

"Herman, let the guy go if he's that dumb. Two out of three ain't bad."

I remember staring directly at Boomerang as he spoke those words. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good success rate. Why not take it? Why not just let the guy go? The clerk was alive, and the blonde, Ashley, she was alive. Robert wanted to go home to his wife and family. Let him. Maybe he'd make it back...if Rhino and I could as two conspicuous bad guys...

Two out of three.

I knew what I was doing...and with those words, I finally figured out why I was doing it.

"No way, Fred. I ain't gonna live with 66.6 tonight."

My friend linked at me for a couple of seconds, before throwing up his hands and sighing loudly. "Christ...alright, mate, if you're going to be stupid, let's do stupid right." Robert was still writing his note, scribbling as quickly as he could, so I nodded to Fred to go on. "You need someone to stay home and guard the fort. I'll do that for you. Make sure the civvies don't accidentally trip a trap or open a door and let one of those things inside."

I couldn't help but smirk. "And you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart, right?"

"I'm doing it because the only thing that I want to gobble me down is a Playmate, Herman, not a walking corpse. The guy said the phone lines were all tangled up. You try your suit's comms yet?"

"Haven't had a need to...give me a second. Yo, Aleksei!" Across the warehouse, Aleksei was still taking to the blonde girl, Ashley. He looked up as he heard me yell his name. "Make sure your communication system is on, gonna test it out." He shot me a thumbs up as I grabbed my mask from the workbench. I pushed the panel to activate the radio and lifted the mask to my lips. "You hear me ok?"

"Loud and clear," his voice came back through the mask's ears.

I nodded, and spoke one more time. "I'm heading out again. You don't have to come with me, but..."

"Good," he interrupted me. "Are you going to that guy's family's apartment up on Versey Street? Because if you do, I got someone I want to stop by and check in on in Soho afterwards."  
"Christ, we're getting ourselves a regular entourage," Boomerang groused somewhat good-naturedly.

Soho was a bit of a hike...but there was no logical way to argue that fact based on what I was setting out to do. "Ok, Aleksei, you and me. We do this cool, and we keep watching our butts, just like last time. We can't get cocky. Got it?"

"Got it," my friend replied. "I'll meet you by the door when you're ready, Herman."

I put my mask back on, re-magnetizing the connection with a touch. "Alright, comms work. You still got your comms in your suit, Fred?"

"Yeah, but you still got that headset around, right? I'd prefer to use that."

"Sure, I got it over here." It was in a box under my workbench, a prototype unit I had worked on a few years ago. Cell phone and PDA technology made communication hardware and software to small, it was easy to thread and wire a small walkie-talkie into someone's uniform upon request. I never threw out the headset though, but kept it tucked away in case I needed it, or the parts, again. I never throw anything away if I can help it. Hell, I have a circuit junction from my very first radio-controlled car running tertiary power functions in one of my vibro-smashers. I remember that car...

I bought it with allowance money from mowing lawns all spring so I'd have it during the summer. When it shorted out one afternoon after flipping into a puddle, my friends thought it was ruined for good. Not me. I brought it home, dried it out using my mother's hair dryer, cracked it open on my father's workbench, and fixed it. Don't ask me how, because I couldn't tell you, but staring at circuit boards and gears, it didn't take me long to figure out what went where, which circuits needed soldered onto which board, which wires didn't cross, and just how much more power I could squeeze from a brand new battery. Once it was all put back together, the car ran just as well as it did before it got soaked...and maybe a little bit better.

When I was putting together my first real pair of vibro-smashers after breaking out of prison, I remembered cracking open that RC car one more time, and cannibalizing the hell out of it. The parts were sub-par, but they did the job until I acquired real gear. I ripped them all out and installed the new components, but along the way, I had forgotten the circuit junction, which was buried deep in my vibro-smashers, acting as a backup system to a backup system. By the time I had remember, it would have been too much hassle to rip them open and replace it. Over the years, no matter how many times I've upgraded, tweaked, repaired, or replaced my vibro-smashers, that circuit junction kept slipping under the radar, and eventually, it evolved into a bit of a good luck charm.

I mentioned all this to the Enchantress during a more formal night at the Bar With No Name once, and she smiled and told me in that silky voice of hers, "A piece of a toy from your childhood? It sounds like you have a fetish there, Herman."

Yeah, these days, I ain't the only one...

"Here," I said, untangling a few wires before handing it over to Fred. "Channel 4. Anything bad happens, you let us know right away, got it?" Boomerang nodded, take the headset and clicking it on to test it.

"Mr. Shocker?" Robert handed me a folded slip of paper. "I told them you rescued me and that it would have been on television. Hopefully, that'll be enough."

I slid the note into my belt. "The three of us have a communication system set up, Robert. I'll let you know your family is safe the minute we get up to Versey Street. Alright?"

"Yes..." He reached out and took my gloved hand. Even though the quilted fabric I felt his strong, sincere grip. "Bless you, Mr. Shocker, for doing this. Please...bring my family back safe."

Alright. Versey Street is more a hike then the 7-11 was...and then we gotta go to Soho. Versey's closer in any case, and the sooner I can let Robert know the fate of his family...alright. It's doable. Dicey. Definitely stupid. But doable, if Rhino and I keep our heads and don't get cocky.

Aleksei was waiting for me at the warehouse door, with Ashley beside him, ready to set the lock one we were both outside. He took a deep breath as I approached, and actually smiled at me. "Once more into the breach, huh?"

I stopped in my tracks. Under my mask, I stared in wonder at the big guy. "Since when did you know Shakespeare, Aleksei?"

"I don't," he said in a low rumble. "That was Shakespeare?" He opened the door for me, and the two of us stepped back out into Manhattan. "I've just heard that damn quote so many times, it seemed like the right thing to say."

Over the sound of sirens and occasional gunfire, I shrugged at him. "Works for me. Come on, we got a walk ahead of us."


	11. First Night, Last Round, Wake Up Call

"Father!"

Even before the garage door was halfway open, Ernesto was out of the truck and running for his father. Robert, tears running down his face, embraced his teenage son as the door rumbled towards the ceiling. "Oh, Father, I'm sorry, I should have saved them..."

"Shhh. There is nothing you could have done. You're alive...that is blessing enough." He patted his son, trying to sooth him. "I am glad you are alive, my son."

Rhino carefully climbed down from the back of the red pick-up truck as the door opened. "Alright, move it inside, Peter, and let's get this place sealed back up." The truck moved forward slowly, the driver taking great care in bringing the vehicle inside. As soon as the tailgate had passed the threshold, I hit the "close" button, and the metal door started to lower on its guiderails. Relieved to be back behind sturdy doors, I turned to sneak a final peek at Manhattan before we buttoned back up, taking my mask off so I could see it with my own eyes.

The city still shined bright, a thousand lights in a hundred high-rises. But tonight, the city burned as well. We had passed two burning buildings and several cars that were alight in our recent journey, along with a few storefronts where broken glass and dropped merchandise littered the sidewalk. Sirens weren't as evident as they had been earlier that night, but the sound of automatic gunfire echoed through the stone canyons, and if I strained my ears, the sound of helicopters was evident. The street lights aligning the West Side Highway were the last thing I saw before the door lowered in front of me. As soon as it finished closing, I stepped back to help Rhino unload the back of the truck. It belonged to a Romanian couple, a Ford F-150 from the last 1990's that they used for catering. Peter was the driver, Anna was in the shotgun seat, and the back of the truck, aside from hauling Rhino during our trip back from Soho, held several boxes and bags from their bakery.

It turned out that Peter and Anne were the people who had baked me my birthday cake earlier that day. Apparently, Aleksei was a long time customer of the place, and almost family to the couple from Romania. When we had shown up to the bakery with Ernesto in tow, the two of them had been packing up to head out of town, upstate to a small town where one of their cousins lived. Rhino convinced them otherwise. I couldn't follow the conversation, as Romanian is one of the hundreds of languages I have no clue how to speak. Next thing I knew, though, I was standing lookout on the streets of Soho, blasting a few zombies, as Rhino, Peter, and Anne loaded damn near everything edible or could-be-cooked-to-be-edible into the back of the truck. Rhino sat in the back...and I'll say this, those Ford commercials where the truck holds steel girders and scrap metal? After watching Rhino sit down without too much fuss from the shocks, I'm a believer. The rest of us sat up front for the trip from Soho to TriBeCa.

The roads were getting worse. There were more pile-ups on the highways, along with ambulances racing about and military caravans, several Humvees packed with freshly activated National Guardsmen. I guess that seeing a known supervillain chilling in the back of a red pick-up truck, speeding across Lower Manhattan, didn't rank too highly on the "imminent crisis" scale. Though I did find it a little off putting when Aleksei waved to one of the caravans and some of the soldiers waved back. Nothing like a zombie apocalypse to put aside criminal/law-abider conflict.

I took my mask and vibro-smashers off, gulping in the relatively fresh air. As Robert and Ernesto were still embracing each other tightly, Ashley made her way over to where I was standing. "Mr. Shocker, I'm glad you're back ok," she said to me.

The gratitude was still a bit unnerving to me. Eying her for a second, I finally put on a weary smile. "Thanks. Everything ok here so far?"

"As well as it could be." Rhino and Peter had lowered the tailgate of the truck, and under Anne's direction were starting to unload the boxes of baked goods and ingredients. "What's all that," Ashley asked me.

"Apparently, we don't have to eat all the Spam I have saved up from the Hulk's rampage last summer," I managed to joke to the blonde. "Aleksei's friends run a bakery down in Soho, and they insisted..." My words trailed off for a second. "Um...er...I was just the lookout." Lord, how many times had I said that to a judge or a lawyer? "All I know is, when a Romanian woman points at you and says 'grab the flour,' you grab the flour."

Ashley giggled at my comment, maybe the first smile of humor I'd seen from her all evening. "I can imagine. I used to date a Polish guy, and his grandmother..."

"What we said was, if we're going to be cooped up in a warehouse somewhere hiding from the undead, at least we're going to eat well!" Aleksei dropped a large cooking pot on the kitchen counter. "I mean, no offense Herman, cheese, crackers, spam, beer, and water gets a little boring after a day."

"You got me there, man. And I ain't gonna complain if someone else wants to cook." I looked around the warehouse, and I realized...something was missing. Or someone. Someones. "Where's Boomerang and...and...the clerk guy?"

"Bobby's taking a nap," Ashley said. "He was up watching TV with Mr. Myers all night long, and passed out on the couch about an hour ago. Mr. Myers is up on the roof. He went up when he heard you guys were coming up the road."

"Alright. And if you're calling him Mr. Myers...you can call me Herman. And that's Aleksei," I said, nodding to where Rhino was closing the tailgate of the truck with one hand and holding a large box on his shoulder with the other. She nodded, and wandered off into the kitchen, where Anne had started to take over. Immediately, stereotypes were engaged, as I heard her booming voice begin to direct Ashley as to what to unpack from the various containers and boxes. I would have chuckled again if I didn't have a direct view of Robert and Ernesto comforting each other in their grief.

X

We had arrived at the Prosario's too late.

The security door to their building was hanging off its hinges, glass covering the inside of the lobby. It crunched under Rhino's feet as he led the way into the building. Our trip up from TriBeCa had been ghoul-free, and now I was wondering if it was because they had all descended upon this place.

"Aw, damn, Herman. This place is a slaughterhouse," Rhino rumbled softly. Beyond the lobby, the hallway of the first floor had been the scene of a massacre. Nearly every apartment door had been forced open. Pools and streaks of blood covered almost every surface. And as I stepped around my friend, I could see several discarded limbs scattered across the floor. Teeth marks were apparent in the wrist and hand closest to our feet, and the ring finger was missing as well. "I don't see any ghouls..." Aleksei began.

"Shhh. Listen." I was speaking quietly, damn careful not to pique the curiosity of any of those things possibly lurking nearby. It took a few seconds, but from the floor above us, we could hear the sounds of shuffling feet. A low moan greeted our silence, along with several soft thumping sounds. "I think they're all upstairs."

"You think someone's alive up there?"

I shook my head under my mask. "They'd sound a lot more agitated if there was, I think. Come on, we're wasting time." I took the lead now, walking down the hallway, my large companion following. The Prosario's apartment, luckily for us, was on the first floor, second door on the left. The door was wide open, a broken security chain hanging from the doorjamb. The wet bloodstain soaking into the foyer's carpet didn't inspire much hope either. But, we were here for a reason, and we went inside anyway. Rhino took up the foyer, careful not to step in the blood, and kept watch as I scanned the apartment. Three-bedroom, not too bad for this part of Manhattan. Aside from the sticky red pool, the only sign of a disturbance was a lamp that had been knocked from an end table. The light bulb was still illuminated...and it helped me spot a splattered blood trail, snaking its ways from the bloodstain in the foyer through a nearby doorway. As I got closer to the doorway, I could hear snarling, and what sounded like nails being dragged across wood. I raised my hands, ready to defend myself if needed, and stepped into the bedroom.

The trail of blood ended in the brightly lit bedroom, at the feet of a young female zombie, not even ten years old, who was trying desperately to claw her way through a closet door. Her fingernails dug into the wood, and she left a trail of skin down the wooden door with every clawing motion, snarling and growling as she pressed her head against the door, which shook violently under her efforts. Next to her, an older female gently thumped her arm against the door, snarling only slightly, almost lazy in her actions to get whoever was behind the door. It had to be a someone. The only time these things got really agitated was when living dinner was around.

Neither of them noticed me as I walked up behind them. In such close quarters, I didn't want to risk shattering the door and driving splinters into anyone who was alive inside. Not even waiting for them to acknowledge my presence, I pulled back and landed a jab directly in the back of the active one's head. Unlike the light tap I gave the zombie outside the 7-11 earlier, this one had my entire body behind it, like I was fighting Spider-Man. I felt my vibro-smasher activate as it impacted her skull. By itself, the punch wouldn't have been anything too special. With my vibro-smasher going off at level one, the zombie smacked against the closet door, silent for a second, before sliding down the surface onto the floor. I did the same thing to the second zombie, smashing its' nose in the process. As it was falling, I quickly tapped on the closet door. "Hey," I said softly, "whoever's in there. I'm a friend. Robert sent me to rescue you."

After a few moments, I heard some rustling, and the door slowly opened. A teenage boy peeked out at me, eyes wide with fear and surprise. "My father sent you? He's alive?" he managed to choke out.

"Yeah, I have a note..." That was all I got out before the door flung open, and the teen ran out. His arms flung wide open, like he was trying to hug me.

"Oh, thank God! I was thought Papa was dead!"

I managed to side step him a bit. Him hugging me would have set off my contact plates and probably violate the trust that had instantly formed. "Yeah, no time for that, kid. We gotta go, those things are crawling all over the top floor. We'll get you back to your dad as soon as we can. Just follow me and be quiet, alright?" The teen nodded. "Alright, good. Where's the rest of your family? Are they hiding too?"

Clear eyes shining with fresh tears looked down at the two corpses on the floor...

Oh, nice job, Herman. You killed the kid's mother and sister...well, no, they weren't his mother and sister anymore. But seeing their zombie corpses couldn't have helped the teen's state of mind too much. I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped he managed to suck it up and deal, because...I was doing this out of some sense of altruism, but I was hoping to avoid hysterical, weeping, grieving civilians as best I could. To his credit, the teen stepped over their corpses without fuss, and was right behind me as I moved back out into the living room, careful to avoid stepping in the ribbons of blood that wove across the carpet.

As we approached the front door, I saw Rhino's head turn to the right, towards the lobby. "We got one," he hissed as me and the teen closed on him. "Just wandered in off the street."

I glanced back at the teen behind me before responding. "Can you take care of him so we can get the hell out of here, Aleksei?"

"Sure." He moved out of the doorway, disappearing from sight. Almost immediately, the two of us still in the apartment heard a low moan coming from the hallway. Turning around, I whispered to the teen. "Give him a minute to clear the way."

The teen nodded, but he was trembling with fear. "Is one...one of those things out there?"

"Yeah," I said, trying to be reassuring. "Rhino'll get rid of it and we can get out of here, but... trust me, you don't need to see..."

I got cut off by a loud roar...and then, something flew past the door to the apartment, causing both the teen and myself to snap to attention, heads whipping around. I caught a glimpse of white and red tennis shoes passing before my eyes. A second later, a series of loud bumps came from the doorway, as whatever it was landed and bounced along the hardwood floor. A small squeaking sound closed the cacophony of noise as whatever it was (ok, it was a corpse, but I had a scared kid beside me. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts, keep thinking unrealistic positive thoughts...) slid along the surface before coming to a halt. "Move it," Rhino rumbled from the lobby. I went out first, stepping to my left so the kid wouldn't see the formerly-flying zombie with a bashed in face as he left his home...

All night long, I'd been hearing these things moan, the only sound they made other than a growl or a snarl. At first, it was a solitary cry from the zombies outside the Bar With No Name. Then, outside the 7-11, it was a bunch of them, but I couldn't quite make out the particulars over whirring of the traffic helicopter just overhead. In the confined space of the empty apartment building, the sound echoed off the walls, through the hallways, down the stairs, and to our ears. It was one, at first, starting with what sounded like a deep breath, followed by a climbing, keenly pitched cry. But that was all I heard before another one soon joined in, lower in pitch...but more urgent in tone. They mixed and built on one another.

So, you could imagine that I wasn't too enthused when the third ghoul chimed in with their version.

I lost count of how many more joined in over the next few seconds.

Any attempt to describe the sound they make...it falls short. The sound...look, I was never one for too much hyperbole, but it felt like someone was trying to strike a match on my soul, the way the sounds blended into each other. It was a horrible song, made by horrible creatures. It was a hunting cry, a call that said "here, humans here, blood here, flesh here. Flush them out of the bushes, of their cars, of their homes." But it was worse than that. Underlying their moans, just below the surface...need. That's the only way I can even come close to quantifying it. A cry of need, of want. It didn't have any joy in it, any happiness. It was like, as they advanced on you, bloody hands clawing at you, they were saying, "we need to do this. We have no choice. The engine that's driving us demands that we rip you apart and wolf you down. "

The kid froze, and I damn well didn't blame him, because it stopped me in my tracks for a second. That little "flight-or-fight" moment I had earlier in the evening was starting to rear its ugly head again, and before the battle lines were even drawn, "flight" was the clear winner. But this kid just lost his mom and sister (thanks to me, and that couldn't have helped matters any) and now the hordes of Hell were abo...

"Kid, move."

Leave it to Aleksei to cut through all the mental red tape and provided the metaphorical boot to the behind. He grabbed the kid by the shoulder and manhandled him through the lobby, dragging him by his upper arm. Right behind the two of them followed yours truly. My friend's feet crunched over the broken glass, but I barely heard it over the noises from behind.

The street was clear as the three of us made it back out onto Versey Street. The street itself was ghoul-free, I concluded after taking a quick look around. "Alright, Rhino. SoHo next, then back to the ranch."

"Alright." Rhino still had a massive hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Ok...what's your name, kid?"

He choked out, "Ernesto..."

"Ernesto, listen up. You're with us now, and we ain't gonna let those guys put a hand on. We're gonna take your back to your Dad as soon as we go check in on some friends of mine." Aleksei was face to face with the teen, crouched down, speaking softly with his gravelly voice. "It'll be fine, just keep up with us, and when you see those dead guys, don't panic. We can take care of them. Just be brave and don't do anything stupid. Got it?" Ernesto nodded, which earned him a pat on the shoulder from Rhino. "Alright. Soho's this way, Herman." He pointed towards the east side of Manhattan. "Think we can just cut across?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Let's not spend any more time standing around, though. You lead."

"Come on, kid." Rhino waited for Ernesto to catch up to him, and, side-by-side, they started to walk up the street, away from the apartment building. I took a moment to glance inside the lobby. I could barely hear the moans of the oncoming horde from out on the street. But I did see them coming down the stairs from my vantage point...five or six pairs of feet, shuffling, limping, barely under control. Forward, always moving forward, never retreating or falling back. Just pushing onwards, because whatever had brought them back to life told them to...

A low voice rumbled at me. "You want me to engrave an invitation?"

Rhino and Ernesto had stopped after a few steps. Both of them were staring at me as I shook my head and trotted up to them. "Sorry...got distracted. I'm here, let's go."

"Head in the game, Herman. You're supposed to be the smart one," my friend quipped at me as we headed away from the scene of the massacre.

X

"And he's back in one piece!"

The door to the roof slammed as Boomerang started walking down the stairs. In both corners of the warehouse, a set of white metal steps, left over from the days when this building was a functional warehouse led up to the roof. In case of emergency, the steps were an evacuation route to the roof and the fire escapes down to the street. One of the first things I did after inheriting the hideout from the Tinkerer was to remove the fire escapes. A way down to the street is a way up from the street. Besides, in case of fire, a level three blast would blow a hole big enough in the metal side of the warehouse to let me escape.

After setting my vibro-smashers on the workbench to recharge, I trudged over to meet Fred at the bottom of the stairs. He had a wide smile on his face as he clasped my shoulder. "Two times stupid, mate. Don't give Lady Luck a third chance to screw you over."

"I ain't plannin' on it at the moment," I responded.

"At the moment...I'll take it and put it in the 'win' column. Herman, you look like hell." Concern wasn't an emotion one would often associate with Fred Myers, but he was giving my face a good once over with a worried look. "You walked all the way across Manhattan, on top of the 7-11 fiasco. How the hell ain't you dead on your feet?" I involuntarily cringed at his choice of words...and a second later, so did Fred. "Christ, I didn't mean..."

"It's ok. Hell, I probably feel as bad as I look."

"Why don't you get a nap, then? Hell, it's four in the morning, mate, and you've been jumping all over the island like a kangaroo."

At the word 'nap,' my body signaled its agreement with Boomerang's suggestion by letting out a huge yawn. My mind took a little more convincing though. "Fred, there are dead people walking around New York City. What in the hell makes you think I'm going to able to fall asleep right now? Besides...someone's gotta stay up and keep an eye on things..."

"Aleksei and I can do that. Besides, this place is secure, right? You set it up so Spider-Man would have a hard time kicking in the door. What are the odds of those clumsy things being able to break in?" The cornerstone of my argument was going to be the smashed security door at the Pasario's apartment building, but Fred cut me right off. "Herman, if you don't get to bed now, I'll get Aleksei to tuck you in. Got me?"

I sighed, throwing up my hands, grateful in a way at losing the argument. "Alright, alright, you got me. Six hours, ok? Wake me up at ten."

"Ten? What self-respecting supervillain gets up at ten am?" Boomerang chuckled to himself as I walked away. "Oh, and Herman?"

"Yeah, Fred?"

"Happy birthday."

I admit to smirking even as I shot my laughing friend the middle finger before leaving him for the evening...

X

You may be wondering how, after the events of this evening, how in the hell I can force any attempt at humor, after seeing the results of the massacre at the Prasario's apartment building. More importantly, how can I put a smile on my face when it's likely that the end of the world was staring me, Aleksei, Fred, and everyone else on the planet in the eyes? Simple answer – in the profession I'm in, a sense of humor keeps you sane. Think about it for a second. Men in spandex fighting each other using technology years ahead of anything currently in mass-production, aliens dropping in to eat the planet, demons from another dimension just showing up for a weekend excursion.

Do you know how ABSURD that sounds?

I said earlier, around here, strange stuff is normal. You just gotta roll with the punches as best you can, and for most of us costumed ladies and gentlemen, that involves somehow keeping a sense of humor about the situation, no matter how out there it is. I don't mean quipping like Spider-Man, because that's just annoying. But when the chips are down, gallows humor helps keep you sane.

Now that I was actually on my way to catch some sleep, I felt the weariness really sink in to my bones. Since about 7 pm, I had been almost constantly on the move across Lower Manhattan and putting myself in harm's way against a bunch of walking corpses, pushing my body physically. The one time I had a chance to sit down and breathe was when we watched the Wrecker try to eat Colonel Fury, which, to me, counted as a mental workout...

My sleeping area was just past my workbench. It was walled off by some folding wooden partitions, stained a dark brown with light tan drawings of children at playing around the fabric center, the kind of furniture that attempts to pass as antique the second it rolls off the assembly line in North Carolina. Behind them were a futon, a nightstand, and a dresser, all from Ikea, which is pretty much the official furniture brand for villains. It's cheap, easy to put together, and if need be, most Ikea pieces can be used as impromptu weapons against any do-gooder intruders. If the company had survived the end of civilization, I'd recommend the Klem product lines. Splinters well under pressure, turns into wooden shrapnel without too much effort.

I demagnetized my uniform one piece at a time, starting with my chestpiece. As I pulled it over my head, my arms and shoulder protested loudly, causing me to wince with discomfort. My suit's built for absorbing the impact and recoil of all the vibro-blasts I throw around, but I still have to lug the damn thing around, and it's heavy thanks to layers of quilting and all the contact plates. Add in how many hours I had been active that evening...

Once I got my boots, belt, and pants off, I took a look in the mirror. I didn't see any bruises, which was always a good sign. My body wasn't anything to write home about, but for a guy my age (thirty-two, as a reminder), lugging around a heavy padded suit and metal gloves as a profession...I wasn't Iron Fist, but I wasn't the Blob, either. Short brown hair, a nose broken only once, brown eyes. As far as New Yorkers go, I was another body on the sidewalk.

Grunting, I sat down on the edge of the futon. After setting my alarm for 9:30 am, I rummaged through the nightstand's drawer, looking for something to take the edge off. If I was going to lie down, it was to sleep, not to toss and turn because my muscles ached. Vicodin...tempting. But I wanted to remain alert just in case something went down and I needed to snap to full readiness in five seconds. Right, then. A Schultz Cocktail should do the trick. Two Bayer, two Tylenol, two Advil, two St. John's, and a big gulp of water to help the kidneys and liver process everything. For the same reason I passed on the Vicodin, I passed on the NyQuil. Say no to illegal drugs, kids, but stock up on the over-the-counter ones. Turns out, I didn't really need the NyQuil anyway, because almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, the last thing I heard was Aleksei laughing at one of Fred's jokes before I conked out.

X

"Oh, screw YOU!"

9:27 am. That's what the clock said as Boomerang's comment woke me up. Never fails. Something always opens my eyes just before the damn alarm goes off. That morning, I would have probably slept right through the ringing anyway, as my body was heavily protesting the interruption of roughly six-and-a-half straight hours of sleep. Hell, I would have probably just rolled over and drifted right back off...

...if Boomerang's next utterance hadn't gotten my attention.

"You're a bloody idiot, Norman Osborn."

I was out of bed in an instant at those words.


	12. Executive Orders

Norman Osborn, formerly the Green Goblin, and now government-appointed head of the Thunderbolts, a superhero team composed of reformed villains.

You want to talk about a complete and utter nutcase, this was the guy. Formerly the owner of Osborn Industries, Osborn had never been the most stable guy. Anytime I came across him in the trade magazine or saw him on TV, the guy just...looked off. Sometimes, he'd be sweating like a pig, and other times, he'd just be staring, slightly off focus, like he saw something no one else in the room could put an eye on. There was no denying the man's a genius. The stuff he built and designed for his company was nothing short of freakin' remarkable, and that's not including all the toys he designed for his reign of terror as the Green Goblin. Pumpkin bombs, both explosive and gas-filled, the glider he swooped around in...anyone can build equipment like that, but the key thing was building it so it'd work in the field under abnormal conditions. And, like any genius who designed technology like that, he used it to throw himself at Spider-Man. I'd never seen anyone who had such a mad-on towards the Web Crawler, and I've known plenty of people who'd love to take a literal stab at the guy. The Green Goblin did everything he could to Spider-Man. I don't know the full details, but I heard the whispers and the rumors, stuff about throwing a girlfriend off the Brooklyn Bridge (or was it the George Washington?) and knowing Spider-Man's true identity. And then, add on top of that the fact that the Green Goblin was a homicidal maniac. I always talk about how I pride myself on never killing anyone, and there are a couple supervillains who share that same feeling. You got a guy like Boomerang, or Speed Demon, who doesn't have a problem offing anyone who gets in their way, but doesn't go out of their way to murder someone.

Then, you got the Green Goblin, who has no problem dive bombing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, winging those bombs around, blowing up everything in sight, all while cackling madly...and all just to draw Spider-Man's attention. Just standing on a street corner somewhere in costume would get that guy's attention, but the Goblin rook special delight in causing and spreading misery.

When the Green Goblin got unmasked as Norman Osborn, a lot of people were shocked and stunned, myself included...though, after a few seconds of thought, it didn't surprise me, seeing the type of guy Norman was. So he gets locked away after someone spills the beans that he's the Green Goblin, and New York breathes a sigh of relief. Then a few years later, I turn on the TV, and the Secretary of Homeland Security is announcing that Norman Osborn is the new head of the Thunderbolts.

I spoke for most of the world when I said...what the hell?

The government shot him full of medicine, put him on anti-psychotic drugs, and just handed him control of a federally sponsored team of superpowered folk. Personally, I would have assumed having to use the word "psychotic" in that sentence would tell someone in charge just how bad an idea that was.

It goes back to what I said earlier in this little tale. Norman Osborn, genius, nutjob, mass murderer...respected. Herman Schultz, genius, professional, not a murderer...joke. Maybe I was a little jealous. Ok, I was a little jealous. Not that I'd want to try to run, handle, and control a team made up of villains who are trying to go legit...let me put it this way. Speed Demon was a Thunderbolt for a brief period of time. That right there would be enough to make me tear my hair out, as much as James is a quasi-friend of mine. You're basically taking a group of superpower bad guys, many of who have multiple issues of their own, and putting a psychotic mass murderer in charge of their activities.

Honestly, I want to know what bureaucrat in Washington, staring at all these dossiers, and knowing the history of Norman Osborn, though "hey, this is a great idea!" Just having a chance to trace his logical thought process fascinates the hell out of me.

Now, I admit, I have a personal stake in this. Remember earlier in this story, when I mentioned how, before teaming up with the Trapster on the bearer bond job, I had almost killed him to collect a price on his head? Well, the bounty had been set by Norman Osborn. It was all in some grand plot to incriminate Spider-Man in the murder of somebody, and Trapster had been one of the guys helping with the frame-up...which made him a loose end in Osborn's eyes. The price had been high enough, and I had been desperate enough at the time, to make a play on the Trapster's life. And I had him. Cornered in an alley, weaponless, and if some vigilante hadn't shown up and stopped me, odds are I would have pushed the trigger. I won't sit here and attempt to justify my actions or give up any sort of moral rationalization, aside from saying I made the call, I hunted him down, and I almost killed the Trapster. But the fact that, in the end, I willingly made myself a pawn in one of the Green Goblin's schemes...I didn't directly blame Norman Osborn for my decision, but it definitely shoved my feelings for him towards the negative end of the battery.

X

I remembered to grab a white t-shirt from the top of my dresser as I charged out of the sleeping area. "What about Norman Osborn, Fred?" I asked this as I pulled the shirt over my head.

Fred's head jerked up as he heard my voice, but he soon was motioning me over towards the living area. "You gotta bloody hear this, mate." Boomerang was sitting alone on the couch in front of the big TV. Even at 9:30 in the morning, he still had a bottle of beer in one hand, going along with the four empty bottles on the coffee table. On the other futon, Rhino's broad back was to us as he caught himself a nap. Slumped into the chair next to the futon, the clerk from the 7-11 was catching a few z's as well. "Where's everyone else?" I sighed as I sat down on the couch next to the Australian, feeling only minimum soreness in my muscles and joints after last night's little excursions. "Don't tell me they all tried to leave too."

"Catching a nap in the truck. Here," Fred said. A cold bottle of beer was pressed into my hands.

"Dude, it's 9:30 in the morning," I protested, handing it back to him.

"I know, but we're out of Scotch."

Now that I was awake, Fred turned the TV up a little louder. He had kept it on ABC throughout the night, and the banner at the bottom of the screen announced the identity of the man currently giving a speech.

NORMAN OSBORN – ACTING SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

"Wait, what..."

"The other guy got eaten last night. Now quiet, Herman, you need to hear this."

Osborn stood behind a podium. As a backdrop, the American flag hung from the wall, framing the man as he boldly spoke into the camera. "I repeat, by order of the President of the United States, citizens may no longer occupy private residents, no matter how safely protected, or well stocked they may be."

It was a good thing I wasn't holding a bottle of beer, because I probably would have let it shatter all over the floor. "What?"

"At the end of this statement, the Department of Homeland Security will distribute a list, via the Emergency Broadcasting System and the Internet. This list will contain the rescue stations that have been set up by SHIELD, the Initiative, the Thunderbolts, and Homeland Security. Citizens are to find the closest rescue station to their place of residence and make their way to the location as soon and as safely as possible, where the government will provide food, shelter, medical attention, and armed protection against the wave of homicide that had infected this nation. Homeland Security has made this difficult decision to allow a consolidation of resources into key areas of the nation, and allow our brave men and women of our armed forces and the Initiative to strike back against this numerous foe without loss of civilian life."

It was HOW it was saying it, the way he said things smoothly like it was the best idea possible. The classic "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" moment, delivered with smooth, even tones.

"National Guard units will be dispatched to assist civilians in reaching these rescue stations, but with the military responding to this crisis, resources are stretched thin. Citizens are encouraged to make their way to these stations as quickly and as safely as possible. Citizens who choose not to obey this order will be forcibly removed from their residences. I repeat, citizens who choose not to obey this order, directly issued by the President of the United States, will be forcibly removed, at gunpoint."

Osborn looked into the camera now. The cocktail of meds that they gave him must have been perfectly mixed, because he radiated an aura of calmness and reassurance. He stared out of the TV, at anyone still watching, and there wasn't a single hint of madness in his eyes. "I am aware that liberty and property will be violated by this order. But in this crisis, the survival of not just the United States, but humanity itself, is at stake. Every dead body that is not destroyed becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. The people it kills...get up and kill. We have seen footage of men, women, and children being overwhelmed by these creatures, believing they were safe behind closed and locked doors, until the weight of numbers was simply too much for the structure to bear. And those men, women, and children, after all too brief a time, rose up and joined the very army of the undead that had slaughtered them. It is the job of this administration, of this government, to stem that tide, and by bearing all of our resources to bear..."

"Heard enough," Boomerang said. He flicked a bottle cap towards the TV. The projectile hit the MUTE button, and Osborn's speech was cut off, even as the new Secretary of Homeland Security continued to talk.

"Dude, that's a new TV," I protested.

"Like I'd miss." With a metallic hiss, Boomerang opened up another bottle of beer, the one I had turned down a few minutes earlier. I eyed the pile of empties on the table warily as he took a good long pull from the bottle.

"Fred, how many of those have you had?"

"It's American beer. You count those as one-half a bottle. So...I think I've had 12-pack since yesterday evening." If he was tipsy, Boomerang didn't show it. "So, Herman...what do you think about old Norman's little idea?"

There was a bottle of water on the table. It was room temperature, but it went a long way towards getting the post-sleep, pre-brushing taste out of my mouth. "On paper," I replied to Fred, settling back on the couch, eyes watching the silent TV, "it ain't a bad idea. If anyone these things eat gets back up and start stumbling around, it's like the Emperor's Reward. An army that grows expodentially. And if this is going on everywhere..." My mind was working on the problem, but the pieces weren't quite sliding in the direction I was expecting them to. I followed it out, though. "...I mean, a guy like Iron Man, he can handle, God, ten of those things? But he can't be in three places at once. It's like a human wave attack. You can't defend everywhere. So, you shorten your perimeter. Maximum firepower, all your supplies in one place, and no time wasted on travel. It...it almost makes sense." The water sloshed in my mouth as I swished it around before swallowing.

"One problem, mate. A big bloody problem in my estimation. You see the streets lately?" Boomerang motioned with his bottle to the roof over our heads. "Took a walk up there this morning after I couldn't catch a damn bit of sleep. And there's more of those things out there this morning...relax," he said, seeing the worried look that had jumped across my face, "there aren't many down this way. No one's on the docks this morning, and no one was down here clubbing after hours. To those things, there's no food this way, so we're the ass-end of Manhattan. Took a look up towards the West Side Highway this morning, though. All last night, the Army's been sweeping up and down, clearing the wrecked vehicles, gunning down those ghouls, pretty much keeping things nice and tidy, right?" I nodded, but in response, he shook his head in a grim fashion. "So, this morning, why were there at least 10 of those things that I could see? Just walking around, minding their own business, not worrying about a damn soldier with a rifle?"

"Because...because those things are everywhere, Fred. It's like Osborn said, you die, you come back."

"Alright, but it ain't just that, Herman. That was just on the street. And from what I saw, the same was going on at the Jersey end of the Holland Tunnel, what I could see of it. Looks like someone's got a roadblock there, and there was a lot of gunfire coming from that way. And that's just the roads, Herman..."

That was the last tumbler. I remembered the Prosario's apartment building, and the horde walking around on the upper floors. "...the buildings. Apartments, offices, public places. My God, Fred."

"Bingo. My Pappy used to tell me back in Alice Springs, for every spider you see, there's five you don't." He tipped his head back, finishing the beer in his hand. "So I'll admit that much, Osborn's got it right. These guys, every time you turn around there's more of them." Fred put the empty on the table, and grabbed yet another one. Without ceremony, he popped the cap and sipped at the head. "So now...now, you got the ghouls you don't see. And from what you told me about that kid's apartment building, those ghouls were just minding their own business until Aleksei made some noise, and then they all started coming for you." Fred took a small sip. "Now what happens when everyone who's hiding out starts going for a walk up to..."

He pointed at the screen. "NEW YORK CITY – MANHATTAN – CENTRAL PARK."

"...past all those buildings?"

Christ.

"Ok, hold up...we don't know that every building's a death trap," I countered. "That apartment building could have been an outlier, an anomaly."

"Mate," Fred replied, shaking his head slowly, "there's a lot of buildings on Manhattan."

X

By 10:30 am, everyone had woken up. Rhino was the last one. I already had the big mug of coffee ready for him as he sat on the edge of the reinforced couch, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and letting the blanket drop to the floor. "Morning, big guy," I said as I handed him the cup. "When did you get to sleep?"

"'bout 6." Aleksei blew on the rim of the cup, scattering the wisps of steam coming from the hot liquid. "Made sure every was settled in before crashing out. How did you sleep?"

"Like the de...like a log." I studied him for a second. "You slept in your costume?" One hand rapped the gray molecules that ran up and down one massive arm. "That couldn't have been comfortable, man."

"Herman, there are ladies present. Plus, I wanted to be ready in case something happened." The futon groaned with relief as Aleksei stood up. We wandered over to the kitchen, and soon, I was thanking God for stereotypes. Anne and Peter, the Serbian couple from the bakery, were already pulling breakfast from the stove, and all of us survivors gathered around a long table Fred and I had set up earlier. The clerk and Ashley dove right into the sausages and warm bread, along with Rhino. I stuck with the donuts. Ever have donuts almost right out of the oven? Boomerang had a bit of everything. At the end of the table, Robert and his son, Ernesto, were picking at their food, but they were eating it. The shock had worn off from their family's death, it looked like. It hardly seemed strange in retrospect, civilians and supervillains sharing a friendly morning meal in the middle of a warehouse while the world came to an end. Looking back, I think we all were appreciating the normalcy of the situation, how it could have been just another day, saved for the criminals.

The TV was still muted, running a list of rescue stations for the New York City area, as we finished. After the events of last night, all of us chowed down on our fill of the freshly made breakfast. The couple, almost immediately, started to clean the table. The old man slapped at Aleksei's hand when he reached to grab a dirty plate, and rattled off rapid-fire Serbian at my friend. Aleksei shot him a sheepish look, responding in his native tongue with a wry grin on his face.

"Mate," Fred asked, drinking coffee now, "where in the hell did you find those two?"

"I used to date one of their nieces back in the Old Country," Rhino replied. He was leaning back in the big chair, content from the breakfast filling his stomach. "They moved over here a few years after I did, and I got word some of Hammerhead's goons were trying to get them to pay protection money for the bakery. Broke a few skulls, told Hammerhead I was the protection for that place, and ever since then, it's pretty much free pastry when I wanted it."

The clerk (Bobby was his name, by the way) looked up at Rhino from where he sat, a confused look on his face. "You...you give them protection? In return for pie? I don't believe it."

"Kid," Aleksei rumbled good-naturedly in reply, "you'd be surprised the lengths a guy will go to when he gets his hands on some good pie."

"But...you...I've seen you rob a bank! And take on Spider-Man at the same time!"

His big neck craned up and down as he nodded. "Yeah, but you always support your own. They're from my neck of the woods back in Europe. No one's gonna take advantage of them while I'm around."

"I..." Bobby shook his head. "...it doesn't make sense."

Next to him, Ashley reached over and gently patted the tattooed clerk on the back of his hand. "It's ok. I thought all bad guys were just bad guys too."

I couldn't help but ask. "What changed your mind?"

"You guys last night," Ashley replied. "I mean...don't get me wrong, I don't approve of your lifestyle choice and still think you're criminals, but...you guys have lives. Families too, I bet. It just takes a bit to get used to...but I never thought it'd be the Rhino and the Shocker who ended up saving my life on purpose."

"Lifestyle choice...you make it sound like gay marriage." The table snickered a bit at Boomerang's quip. "Think about it for a bit, though," he said once it died down, "Aleksei here has a point. You support your own. Now, I ain't that altruistic, but Herman and Aleksei here...well, mankind might be turning into an endangered species."

"Wow." I shot a look Fred's way at that comment. "Way to kill the vibe, man. And just when we were gonna solve the civilian-supervillain impasse."

"Sorry, Herman. Idle chatter is all well and good, but I think we got a bigger issue right now, mates and sheilas." Boomerang leaned back in his chair, and produced a cigar from his costume's pocket. "Anyone mind?" Before anyone could object, he lit a match off the side of his leg, and puffed the stogie into life. "Cards on the table, everyone. While you were sleeping, I got to play Big Brother and keep an eye on the TV most of the evening. And I ain't gonna mince words...we're so screwed."

Fred gave the rundown on Norman Osborn's speech and the Executive Order that went along with it. Granted, his recap used a lot more swear words and even a reference to relations with farm animals, but it got the point across pretty clearly.

"So, technically, by sitting here, behind metal walls, sealed doors, and sharing this fine breakfast with three wanted criminals, all while remaining safe from the hordes of flesh eatings freaks wandering around Manhattan..." Fred waved the stub of his cigar for emphasis. "...we're breaking federal law." He smirked, and drew a laugh from Aleksei when he joked "welcome to the bad guys, everyone."

"That can't be right." Robert was the first one to chime in, from down at the far end of the table. "The government has to know what the streets are like. Just hours after everything started..." He motioned to Aleksei and I, sitting side-by-side. "You two saw it. So did you, Ashley. The streets were getting thick with those things even then. And...I can only imagine how much worse they are now."

"No, man," Bobby countered, gesturing with a tattooed arm. "I mean, it's been at least 12 hours. The National Guard, SHIELD, they got called out. They've been out there sweeping the streets, right?"

Fred chose that time to interject. "Herman and I had that conversation while you guys were napping. The military has been out there doing their thing. But from where I was standing on the roof, I didn't see a damn bit of difference, kid. Put one down, two more takes its place."

The clerk looked dejected for a second, but he looked back up with renewed hope. "But, we haven't heard any sirens down this way. And none of those things have pounded on the doors. And if there aren't any of those things down this way..."

"Sorry, Bobby, but this is the ass-end of TriBeCa." It was my turn to dash the kid's hopes as I told him, "when it comes to residential housing, the boom didn't touch this part of the island yet. This is all still warehouses and docks, and since nobody's working down here this morning...well, to be blunt, there isn't any food down here."

"Except for us," Robert conceded.

"Except for us," I acknowledged. "Which means, eventually...one of those things is going to stumble down this way, and if he...or she...suspects that there's someone alive down here, they'll bring more of their buddies along the way."

Ashley semi-raised her hand, trying to grab my attention. "How? Those things...they don't talk. How do they communicate?"

"Those moans they make." All eyes turned to Rhino. The table creaked a bit as he clasped his hands, leaning forward on the table to look at everyone, making eye contact as he spoke. "You've all heard them. It's like a mating call, except it ain't. Like a cop getting on the horn and telling everyone there's a bad guy cornered in an apartment building, and then all the boys in blue show up and bust inside. One of those zombies moans, and it tells the rest of them that there's a poor sucker waiting to get snacked on."

"Lovely," Ashley shivered.

"Sorry, darling," Rhino responded, "they don't pay me to sugar-coat. They're like wild dogs. Once they lock onto a scent, they're not letting go until they brought..."

"Ok, I think they get the point, Aleksei," I interrupted him.

The big guy shook his head. "They might, but Osborn didn't. Putting that many people on the streets just to walk all the way to Central Park is going to ring the dinner bell..." He paused for a second. I knew that look pretty well from years of working with my friend. An idea had just fluttered across his mind, and Aleksei was reaching out and trying to grab it before it got away...

...and lucky for all of us, in the long term, he managed to snatch it.

"...and all those zombies are going to head up that way." He nodded, once, firmly. "Yeah. Anyone going up to Central Park, they're gonna be dragging a whole bunch of ghouls behind them. And those ghouls ain't gonna go away when they get there, either. They're gonna keep hanging around, like back at...at the 7-11," he said after glancing at the Prosario's for a moment. "They know there's food in there, so they ain't gonna stop. They'll be attracted to Central Park..."

"Like a magnet."

Aleksei turned to me, and I could see the train of thought had left the station once I had interrupted him. "Huh?"

"Like a magnet...where the food is, so are they." Suddenly, I was pushing myself away from the table. "It makes sense, Aleksei, it does." After a few seconds, the people at the table were watching me dragging a whiteboard towards them, putting it in plain and easy sight. "Look," I said as I was dry-erasing away the plans of me and the Trapster's armored car heist...two or three days ago. It seemed a LOT longer than that now. "Here's Manhattan, and here are the bridges." It was a quick outline of the city, the stretched oval of Manhattan and the bridges and tunnels leading from the Outer Boroughs, drawn in dark green magic marker. "And here's the people going to Central Park." Long, sweeping, curved arrows, all pointing to the rectangle I had added to the center of the oval. "Everyone's gonna be heading there because Norman Osborn said so, and that's where the good guys are. Problem is..."

This one took the red marker. "...because we know those things seem to love the chase as well as the damn catch..." I drew red arrows, parallel to the green arrows. "...the zombies are gonna be heading there as well." A big red circle around Central Park hopefully drove the point home. "And once they're there, they won't budge."

After a few seconds of appropriate silence, I picked back up the green marker. "However..." On the lower end of the island, I drew a big circle. "...the good news is, none of these arrows..."

Capping the marker, I thumped the circle with the end of the writing instrument. "...come anywhere near us."

"Wait," Bobby said. "You just told us eventually those things are going to wander down this way...and now you're saying they aren't?"

"Not exactly, but yeah, I see why you're confused. What I'm saying is going to Central Park is a bad idea. A really bad idea. Unless Osborn is setting up one big killzone to blow the heads off every zombie that shows up, but why would he put civilians in the line of fire?"

"Mate, it IS Norman Osborn..."

"Good point, Fred. But my point is, Bobby, we're gonna get SOME of the zombies, but nowhere near as many as we would have, because they're all gonna be trying to take a walk in the park." I tapped Central Park again with the marker. "Look at it this way. They're going to be taking the heat off of us."

"Us?" Robert studied me with a critical eye, leaning back a little bit in his chair. "What do you mean? You're not going to Central Park?"

I shook my head, feeling a small smirk trying to grow on my face. "Nope. Fred has the right idea. My ass is staying right here, Robert. And I'm hoping everyone else decides to stay too."

Bobby and Ashley tried to speak up at this point, but Robert overwrote them. His voice sounded as strong as it had last night. "Ok, Mr. Schultz. Defend your position, without resorting to violence and breaking things, please."

I laughed at his confidence, managing to bring a smile to his face. "Alright, Robert. This warehouse is pretty damn secure. The way I fixed it up, it'd give Spider-Man pause trying to get in here, let alone a bunch of undead, who don't have wall-crawling abilities and super-strength. With a couple of more improvements..." I looked around, nodding to myself as I spoke. "...yeah, we can make this place a fortress. There are three entry points, and two are already welded shut." I stepped away from the board and pointed towards the large loading door. "We can weld and put up some spare scrap metal and seal that entrance.'

"Alright," Robert countered. "Then how do we get out?"

"Two ways. There's a ladder on the roof that can be used to go over to the abandoned cannery next door. But the other way is in the middle of that pile of crates." Motioning towards the boxes at the center of the warehouse, I explained. "There's a trap door that leads to a storm drain that leads to where I keep my getaway ride. You open the storm drain door and you're on an access road that'll take you right to the West Side Highway. And there's enough room in the van for everyone currently here."

"Dude, I do NOT like boarding myself up in here. I've seen those movies," the 7-11 clerk proclaimed, "I know what happens. The zombies always break in and kill everyone inside."

"Well, Central Park's just a big fortress then, Bobby, with more people inside and a lot more zombies outside trying to break in." The words came out harshly, like they always do when I'm dealing with civilians. Bobby flinched a bit at my tone, and I found myself trying to soothe him. "Look, it's not the best place to be, I know. Right now, I'd rather be on an island somewhere surrounded by blue water, on a white beach, with a cold drink in one hand and something remarkably firm-breasted in the other, but I'm not, and you don't have a great rack." I tried to grin at the young adult. "It's just not the right play, alright? It's too many people, too many ghouls, and if something goes wrong...here, we at least have an exit to run for."

Robert nodded at the other end of the table. "Alright. Good points. But what about the food, shelter, medical attention...and the fact that the Avengers are probably going to be there as well."

"After that little demonstration by Hawkeye while Herman here was rescuing you, forgive him if the Avengers aren't really high on his Christmas card list right now." Fred's voice took on a cheap imitation of mine. "Hello, I'm the Shocker, criminal genius, and I've brought these six civilians through the mean streets of New York to your rescue station." Now, a high falsetto. "Oh, thank you so very much, Shocker. While you're here, can we show the inside of our lovely jail cell? Just slap these handcuffs on and we'll whisk you right over, well SCREW that." Fred tapped his chest with the burned out stub of his cigar. "My arse is parked right here."

"What about you, Aleksei?" The question didn't come from me, but from Robert. Rhino looked a bit surprised by the question, coming directly from the civilian. He blinked twice before giving his answer to the Hispanic.

"Herman thinks it's a good idea. That's good enough for me. But...we're gonna need a few things. More food, for one. Probably some more first aid stuff. This place wasn't made for this many people to crash all at once, especially if something goes wrong. " Aleksei looked at me from the opening in his suit, and sighed while giving a weary smile. "Means we're probably gonna have to go back out and get some more stuff, Herman."

I hadn't thought of that. Christ...

"Can I just offer one alternative, before we make a commitment?" Bobby waited for me to nod. "Thanks. Look...why can't we just, I don't know, LEAVE the island? Get a big car or van and just drive?"

"Everything's one way," Fred replied. "I saw the bridges this morning. Traffic's coming onto the island, but it ain't leaving it." He shook his head. "I couldn't believe it. Osborn's got everyone coming ONTO the island instead of running the hell away from it. But yeah, the roadblocks are up, and from what I saw, it's open season on the ghoulies...but the only people leaving the island are military. Not civilian."

"Last suggestion, ok? Last one. A boat. Why can't we just hijack a boat," Bobby asked, "and leave that way? Make it to Jersey down near Atlantic City or something?"

"Not a bad idea, Bobby. That's actually...can you drive a boat?" Bobby, after a few seconds, shook his head sadly at my question. "Damn," I cursed. "Can anyone here drive a boat? Anyone? Pete? Anne?" Rhino's baker friends started at me for a moment as the big guy translated, but shook their heads 'no' once he finished. Would have been freakin nice...

Would have's didn't help us right now, though. It was about what we had on hand, or what we could easily obtain. Doing some quick math in our head, I figured we had the day to shore things up and turn this place into a fortress, but with Rhino doing the heavy lifting and me doing the spot welding, it wouldn't take that long. The key was going to be figuring out what supplies we needed, how long we were gonna be in here, and how long we could keep under the radar...

Damn it. Being a hero was more prep work then being a bad guy.

"Ok, everyone. As I said I'm staying here, and Boomerang and Rhino have made it pretty clear they're staying here too. Technically, this isn't a private residence, so Norman Osborn can go spit for all I care. Now...I want you all to stay. You want to walk out that door and go up to Central Park, I won't stop you. But I'll tell you that I think you'd be making a really stupid choice that's gonna bite you in the ass, literally in this case. You got 15 minutes to decide before we start welding that door shut, so make your call now."

I was pushing the whiteboard back over to my workspace when I heard a chair scrape behind me. "Mr. Shocker," Robert's voice spoke, "I don't think we have 15 minutes to waste before we start to weld. And I, for one, along with Ernesto, will be staying here. You risked your life for my son's, and mine as well. I trust you."

"Yeah..." Bobby ran a hand through his hair, a wary look on his face. "I mean, you're a bad guy...and Boomerang's a bad guy...and Rhino's a bad guy...but...you saved my ass, man. I got nowhere else to go, anyway...least a place with a big TV like you got." Ah, honesty of the youth...

"I'm in the same boat as Bobby. I don't have anywhere else to go...and you guys brought us here..." Ashley nodded. "Yes. I'll stay."

"They're in," Rhino spoke, motioning to Peter and Anne after a few moments of conversation.

"Great...great." 24 hours ago, this situation would have been completely unfathomable to me. Two friends, six strangers, a big breakfast, and a horde of hungry zombies roaming the streets.

New York, huh? What a town.

Welding the doors...taking stock of the supplies we had...figuring out what supplies we need and how much of it...oh, and now, avoiding the US military as well as the living dead. It could be done. We had the time.

"Ok. We're gonna keep you guys safe, I promise." Out of the corners of my eyes, to one side, Rhino was nodding. To the other, Boomerang was shaking his head. Both were signs of encouragement. "Robert's right. We got a bunch of work to do. Let's get to it."

X

I didn't WANT the responsibility.

In retrospect, knowing what role my warehouse hideout would take on in the next week, that statement's pretty laughable. In the here and now, didn't we just see Herman Schultz, using a whiteboard as a teaching aid, talk about zombie migration patterns and spot welding and promising six civilians he and his band of villains would keep them safe and secure?

Damn it, I hate when people use logic against me.

As a villain, you get used to a certain...sense of independence. Sure, you have your drinking buddies, and you have your occasional partners in crime, but in the long run, most jobs and gigs are pulled off by you and you alone. When teaming up with another supervillain, the odds lean towards the association ending badly more often than not. Ever see two superheroes meet? They usually brawl at first, until they both get a clue and realize the other guy's a cape as well, and then put aside their differences to beat up on the poor schmuck or schmucks who get in their way. Bad guys are different. We'll get along at first, save for the sniping and snide comments as we mark our territory and pee on the other guy's leg. But when push comes to shove, the cracks show up, and there's a double-cross, or someone flees the scene, or grabs the money and runs...a few gigs like that, and you quickly realize you're better off on your own. Aside from Rhino, who I've never had a problem with, and Boomerang, who I've had minimal problems with, every attempt I've ever made to work with another villains goes sideways...98.7% of them, actually, since Trapster and I did pull off their armored car heist a few days previous. Mostly though, it's ego, pride, and a whole bunch of personal issues that lead to the inevitable "my swinging cod's bigger than your swinging cod" blow-up that ALWAYS happens when the good guys show up, and instead of putting your difference aside, you fight them and each other...

I prefer to work alone. A job is tough enough when you plan for just one person. Add a second person and the complexity quadruples. At a third, and now you're working at the sixteenth power. Screw that. The key to most jobs is to make them as simple as possible and avoid trying to being a fancy show-off. It took me a while to learn that lesson, but sometimes, sacrificing your pride for a simple "smash window, grab jewelry" job is worth the payday. More importantly, working on your own teaching you the other important supervillain quality, self-reliance. When everything goes to hell, as it always, always, always does, you have to be able to always count on yourself to see things through. Odds are, the carefully laid, flawless plan you laid out to rob the Last National Bank is going to go wrong because Spider-Man just happened to be swinging by. When that happens, you can't depend on anyone else but you to get the job done...or cut bait and abandon the job...and get home in one non-incarcerated piece. Since the first time I broke out of jail, I always did my best to make sure I didn't need anyone else. Sure, you do favors, you sometimes pull a job with someone you think you can trust, but if something happened, and it was just me...no Rhino, no Boomerang, no Speed Demon, hell, even no Trapster...I could handle it. I'd probably panic and grouse loudly, but I could handle it.

It boils down to being responsible for yourself. When it does go wrong, and you do end up losing, you have to say "I screwed up." Yeah, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, they may have had a large hand in putting you behind bars, but you had a part in it too. When you start pointing the finger at everyone else...there's a reason why a guy like Electro, a living megawatt battery who could stop a heart from 50 yards away, keeps getting his butt kicked by Spider-Man. It's because Electro refuses to learn, to get better, to realize his mistakes. I may not have Electro's name recognition, but I'll tell you this, and yeah, I'm bragging. I got a better win-loss record against Spider-Man then a lot of other villains out there, and it's because I never lose the same way twice, and I never win the same way twice...

Ok, enough with the pep talk. My whole point with this part of the tale is this. I'm responsible for myself and that's where the buck stops. Tonight, I just spread that out to include six people I barely knew. I went out there, and I helped save their lives, and in doing so, I took them under my protection. I said "nothing will harm you, especially the flesh eating zombies currently walking around." Now, we're in the middle of welding scrap metal and some steel plating over the loading dock door, working together...

I am NOT ready for this.

I wanted the Avengers to swoop in. Just come flying down from the sky and take them off my hands, going "alright, you did your penance, we'll take it from here." Whatever was going on, however, it was kicking the ass of the cape-and-cowl community. You could see it on TV, and I'll go into detail in a little bit, but the heroes were losing. This was a new enemy, one that didn't quit, give up, or could be convinced and reasoned with. You couldn't find the leader and shoot him in the face, or make him surrender, or cause a split in the ranks. But here I was, Herman Schultz, promising to protect people from the very same threat the big guns of the world couldn't hold back.

And it weighed on my mind, every single thing I did those few hours.

Maybe that's why, before all this, I never considered being a hero. Too much responsibility.

X

"Can you think of anything we're missing?"

Robert took the list from my hand. He looked it over a few times, his eyes scanning the document. "No, Herman. I think that's everything. Ashley, what do you think?" He handed the list to the blonde, who gave it her own once-over.

"Um...actually...yeah, there is something we need." She looked up at me, and I watched as a band of red rose in her cheeks. "You see...I could use some...er..." After a few seconds of stammering, she motioned for me to lean closer with a crook of her finger. Her breath felt warm in my ear as she whispered.

"Oh..." I felt a little bit of red rise to my face in embarrassment once I realized what she was asking for. "Yeah...I'll make sure to grab some for you. Definitely." Ashley sighed in relief, chuckling nervously, as I took the list back from her. I tucked it into my costume's pocket, magnetically sealing it to ensure the vital piece of paper wouldn't get lost. The last thing in the world I wanted to do right now was make two trips. If all went well, this would be the last time I set foot outside the warehouse until...well, until someone came to rescue us. Or something went horribly, horribly wrong. Ok, Herman, positive thoughts, good mental attitude, don't be a pessimist. Just a quick out, a quick grab, and a quick in. You did it twice the night before, so you can pull it off now.

Behind me, I heard a soft pinging sound. Rhino had lightly rapped a knuckle against the two steel plates that were now welded across the loading dock door. "Herman, you sure this will hold," he asked, his voice tinged with skepticism.

"It'll hold." I walked over and stood next to my friend, looking at the seven-foot high plates. They overlapped slightly in the middle to provide a joint, reinforced with some scrap metal I had lying around. The edges were welded to the guiderails for the loading dock door, and those had been strongly reinforced with some extra clamps and U-Joints. It had been quick work at first, with Rhino holding the plates in place while Robert and I welded them into place, but once the wall had been built, reinforcing it had been a snap. "It's not pretty, yeah. But it'll hold up. Hell, it's stronger then the walls of the warehouse, Aleksei."

"Are you sure, Herman? Enough to stake our lives on it?"

"Christ, man...look," I said, "it's the best we could do with what we got on hand. It ain't pretty, but it'll hold up if those things come banging against the door. You gotta stop worrying about everything, big guy." I lightly swatted him on the arm. "That's my job, alright? 10 minutes, then we're out." I left him still staring at the makeshift wall, as if simply thinking about making it stronger would cause it to happen.

"Herman, got some damn good news." Boomerang was sitting in front of the TV as I walked over to the living area. He was wearing the headset, a one-earpiece, hands-free microphone setup, that I had dug out of mothballs for him the night before. Aside from doubling as a cell phone or a two-way Direct Connect radio, it was wired into the suits of a select few of my colleagues for instant and easy communication. I had access to the network, as well as Boomerang and Rhino. Trapster still had temporary access as well from our armored car job. One other person was on the wireless network, but we hadn't heard from him since the events of the first night. Until now. "Just got off the horn with James. He's alive and kicking."

"Great!" I gave Boomerang a high-five and a firm hand-grip in celebration. "Where the hell is he? He should be running his ass down here by now and join up with us."

"He tried," Fred said. "He ended up taking that guy who stumbled into the Bar to the hospital. The guy died once they got to the ER, and then got right back up. The guy started munching on people before James killed him and then got the hell out of Dodge. He stopped running once he hit Harlem, and apparently it's a total mess up there. Zombies, scared civilians, and a lot of illegal firearms. And now the military's up there enforcing Osborn's Order. James found a place to hide out, and he's waiting until the streets are a little safer and less crowded."

"Less crowded of zombies, or of the fuzz?"

"Both."

"Damn...I'm glad he's safe, but we sure could use him down here, Fred."

"Mate, James feels the exact same way. The place he found?" Fred's face took on a smile. "Oh, you'll love this...he found Blizzard's hideout, and they're currently shacked up together."

My hand went to my mouth, but the laughter had already escaped. "No way...you're kidding me. I thought those two were on the outs!"

Boomerang returned the grin. "Any port in a storm, mate! James, and I quote, said 'being eaten alive has to be better then listening to Donald bitch and moan.' Hell, maybe those two lovebirds will finally do it and admit they're hot for one another. They argue like a married couple!"

"And there's the image I needed to see. Thanks, Fred, now I got those two in a lover's embrace looping in my head. What the hell did I ever to do you to deserve that sentence?"

Fred kept laughing. "Oh, abandoning me when we were robbing that cargo hangar at the airport comes to mind. Or the time the Chameleon asked who drank his Scotch, and you pointed at me...want me to keep going?"

"No, no..." After Fred stopped laughing, I asked, "any word on Trapster?"

"James said he heard from him. Peter was planning on grabbing a bottle of really good vodka, a couple of girls, and just sitting this one out. Now, no offense with this little ad hoc rescue station thing we got set up here now, Herman...but Peter has the damn right idea."

"Well, I'll add 'hot girls' to the shopping list, Fred." I looked up at the TV. The networks had pooled their resources through the FCC, another mandate from Norman Osborn, and now all the channels showed the same talking head, and gave out the same government controlled information. Across the bottom of the screen, the list of rescue stations scrolled across, naming the places of safety in the tri-state area. It listed them for New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, along with a list of several numbers to call to request pickup and evacuation by the US military to the nearest rescue station. "How we looking right now, Fred?"

"Terrible. And I'm saying that because the government isn't telling us anything. They got the news locked down tighter then a Girl Scout's cookie bag. All they've really been telling everyone is 'go to the rescue station, go to the rescue station,' and every now and then they'll roll footage of the boys with the guns being heroic and shooting a lot of dead people. That's about it." Reaching to the table, Fred grabbed the remote control and pointed it at the TV. "And it's on every channel...but one."

The picture flickered at Boomerang went up in the channels. Aside from the flicker, every channel was a mirror image of the one before it. 500 channels, and one thing on...

"YEE-HAW!"

...two things on.

"Now, the key here is, you gotta shoot 'em in the head." The redneck on TV pumped the action on his rifle, and set the stock to his shoulder. "Anyplace else, it won't do anything to 'em, and it's a waste of bullets. They're slow as hell, so just breathe, take aim..."

BANG!

"GOT HER!" The redneck, smiling, lowered his rifle, setting the barrel on the top rail of the fence. 100 feet away, a young girl fell over backwards into the ankle-high grass. Further away, maybe around 200 feet, three forms were shambling across a hayfield towards the redneck as he casually reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt. "See, they're dead, they're all messed up, so they don't got a heart or stomach to blow open. Leg shots are fine, but they'll still keep coming after you. So, just blast them right between the eyes and blow their brains out. The key is to maintain 360 degrees of vision. If you focus only on the ones in front of you, the ones behind you are gonna walk up and take a strip out of your hide." As he reloaded the hunting rifle, the redneck smirked at the camera. "Hey, bet I can take out all three of those things before they reach the one I just shot..."

"The hell is this, Fred?"

"Spike TV. Either the channel didn't get the memo, or the boys in the control room decided to give America something educational to watch for once." The redneck was taking aim again, and we watched as, with three well placed shots, the undead fell to the ground, landing in separate heaps.

"Alright. Hope you all paid attention to that. Now, Earl should have just finished barricading up the homestead, so we're gonna head over and take a look at the job he did. And later on, we'll show you what supplies you're definitely gonna need in case you have to make a run for it. Come on."

"Damn," I said with approval as the camera followed the redneck away from the fence. "Now that's what people need to be seeing."

"Once you're out, Bobby and I are gonna drag that TV out from your room and set it up out here, if that's ok with you. Keep an eye on the government news and an eye on this channel."

"Fine by me, Fred." I walked over and grabbed my vibro-smashers from their recharging station. "Just be careful, the cable in here's spliced and jury-rigged all to hell. I'd rather have the government news then no news at all. And make sure Bobby keeps an eye on the Internet once you guys are done..."

"Got it, got it, got it," Fred replied with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about us, mate. Worry about you and Aleksei. You got the list, you got the location, just get in and get the hell back here. You're the brains of this operation, Herman."

"Oh, believe me, this ain't night for robbing a bank or hitting the adult store. I know that, Fred. But you guys be careful yourselves. That door comes down...it shouldn't, but if it does, you all get in the van and get the hell out of here."

Boomerang turned around, facing me. He stuck out his hand, and I took it with my free one. "Just don't be stupid, Herman. Seriously."

I nodded, giving his hand a firm squeeze in the process. "Fred, I'm done being stupid. One more trip, and we're done. Promise. You just make sure everything here stays cool." Boomerang nodded in return, and turned back to the TV as I walked towards the crates in the middle of the warehouse. Bobby and Ernesto were sitting in front of my computer, scanning the Internet for the latest information on what was going down. It had been Bobby's idea. Turned out, the clerk was going to school at Empire State for Computer Graphics and a bit of a whiz when it came to audio and sound. After breakfast, he sat himself down in front of the desktop and just started pulling everything he could from the online world. Ernesto had wandered over at some point, and Bobby put him right to work writing everything down as he surfed. At the moment, the Internet was the home of three groups of people; those screaming for help, those in a secure location wondering what was causing this to happen and what to do about it, and those complaining about the government's plans of action that were being executed. Bobby was doing his best to sift through this non-government-controlled resource and hopefully find a few gems of information along the way.

As for the other survivors, Pete and Anne, after cooking not only breakfast, but making lunch for everyone as we worked on the perimeter, were taking a well deserved nap. Ashley and Robert had gone up to the roof for a bit of fresh air. Robert, it turned out, was a construction supervisor down at Ground Zero, overlooking the welders of the Freedom Tower (sorry, One World Trade Center, they started calling it right before all this) as they worked on the foundations and skeleton of the building. Ashley was his admin assistant, which explained why he was giving her a ride home last night. While I was gone, Robert was going to look over the other parts of the warehouse, and make sure they were as secure as I had planned them to be when I just to worry about Spider-Man busting inside, as opposed to the thousands (or hundred thousands, God I hoped not) of undead who would try to break in if they knew what was waiting for them inside.

Rhino was already waiting for me by the side entrance to the stack. With a nod, he let me walk past, and followed in my footsteps towards the center. By this point, the pattern I used to reach the emergency exit was so ingrained, even Aleksei could remember it. Left, right, right, left, step over the low crate, and left again. Normally, we'd have to duck under the tripwires and avoid the pressure plates, but I had disabled those before working on the welding earlier that day. If the worst came to pass, I didn't want Bobby or Anne getting smacked by a 100 pound bag of sand just inches short of the emergency exit and becoming a snack in the process.

The center of the stack held a simple storm grate, unlocked now (again, a precaution in case the worst came to pass). The Tinkerer had installed it directly over the large storm drain that ran underneath the warehouse, leading directly to the Hudson River. With Rhino behind me, I pulled the grate open with a loud, rending squeak that reverberated across the entire warehouse. Best free alarm system I've ever had. "You first, Aleksei. I'll close it behind us." Carefully, Rhino grabbed onto the rungs leading down into the darkness, and I followed right after him, grinding the grate closed above me.


	13. Shopping Spree

"The lights are on, Herman, but it doesn't look like anyone's home."

"That's why I'm worried, Aleksei. A place like this, you'd think someone had the same idea we had. Break in, grab what you need, and get the hell out."

"Maybe they already did all that, and are already the hell out."

"Then let's hope there's something left inside for us." I glanced both ways down the street. Aside from a few shambling forms about three blocks away, it was just the two of us. "Alright, let's go and get this over with." Moving quickly, Rhino and I crossed the street, keeping our heads on a swivel and our eyes peeled for anything, or anyone, that might complicate matters as we made our way towards Walgreen's.

The trip from TriBeCa has been uneventful, thankfully. We had emerged from the storm drain onto the access road and crossed the warehouse district without any major problems, just two ghouls that Rhino had quickly and quietly dispatched with his massive hands before they drew a bead on us and alerted their friends. The West Side Highway had been a momentary concern, though. The refugees coming from off Manhattan were using it as a main artery heading towards Midtown, and since the watchwords of the evening for myself and the seven-foot tank at my side were "low profile," we stayed under cover and waited for a break in traffic before darting across. After that, the trip to the drug store had been without hassle. Note that I didn't say it wasn't nerve wracking. Every block had a zombie, or several, lumbering about on the street as Rhino and I trotted past. Most blocks also came with a dead body or two. They were laid out in pools of blood, some with bullet wounds, and others showing the signs of blunt force trauma to the head. There wasn't any sign of the living, however, on our trip to the drug store once we crossed the highway. I hoped that meant that they were smart enough to be locked behind closed doors because of the ongoing crisis. Then again, this was New York City. Most people would hide when superheroes and supervillains come crashing down the street, tearing into each other. In this city?

The last time Spider-Man and I went at it, the web-crawler managed to punch me into a hot dog stand. As I was pulling myself free from the wreckage, the hot dog vendor had out a cell phone, and snapped a picture of me covered in ketchup and mustard, talking loudly about putting the pic up on his Facebook page. Gotta love New Yorkers.

We stopped just outside the storefront. Through the high windows, the bright fluorescent lights shone down, illuminating the stacks of Coca-Cola boxes that were resting against the glass. Rhino stepped in front of me, taking the lead, and I watched our backs as he went towards the entrance to the Walgreen's. While the streets were quasi-clear, the mixed sounds of gunfire, both automatic and energy based, and the roar of engines could be heard, mostly coming from the north side of the island. You could catch the occasional siren in the air, but they were nowhere near as frequent as they had been that first night...

Lost in thought, I stop just short of walking directly into the broad back of Rhino. He had stopped short at the entrance to the drug store. Leaning forward slightly, a quizzical look on his face, Aleksei was studying the inside of the store as we stood on the sidewalk.

"What's up, man," I asked.

He turned to look at me. "The front door's wide open," Aleksei said in a vey quiet voice, suddenly taking great care not to be loud. "Just like at the apartment building from last night. And there's a lot of blood too, Herman."

Oh, crap.

I slowly craned my neck around the big guy. Just like he said, one of the automatic doors to the drug store was standing wide open. Unlike the security door at the Prosario's apartment building, the safety glass was still intact, with flyers hanging on the back proclaiming the latest weekly special.

They provided a nice framing for the bloody handprint that streaked down the glass.

My eyes followed the handprint all the way to the bottom of the doorframe, where I saw a large puddle of blood that had gathered. It gleamed red from the overhead lights. A trail led away from the pool, weaving across the white tile floor like a river, winding out of sight to the right of the doorway, past where the cash registers were. Bright, red, wet blood. Fresh blood.

"Damn it. Aleksei, that's recent. This happened...no less then an hour ago. Probably sooner." I looked up at my friend. "You were right. Someone probably did beat us to the punch..."

Aleksei ground his teeth together, peering back into the Walgreen's now, maybe trying to catch sight of what had almost certainly caused this much blood to be spilled. "You want to try somewhere else, Herman? Find a new place in a couple of blocks?"

I thought about his suggestion for a minute before shaking my head. "I really don't want to waste time trying to hunt down a drug store where something like this hasn't happened, because odds are, we ain't gonna find one. Whatever it is, Aleksei, as long as we're smart...come on, let's get off the streets."

Aleksei's grunt was...I'd rank it at about 70% agreement, 30% disagreement with my choice of action. While I concurred that sticking my head into the zombie's mouth wasn't the smartest idea I've had...well, it didn't work out too badly last time, did it? Besides, the less time we spent wandering the streets looking for an incident-free drug store, the less time the two of us were exposed in the open. We had handled a bunch of zombies earlier in the evening, even with Hawkeye sticking her nose in at the end. Anything inside here, while I wasn't looking forward to dealing with, the two of us could hopefully handle without too much effort.

Rhino led the way, stooping slightly to enter the drugstore. I followed right behind him. The two of us were very careful not to step into the puddle of blood as we made our way. The store, aside from the bloodstains stretching past the front counter, could have been open for business on any normal night of the week. The lights were on, not only at the front of the store, but the pharmacy in the back was still well-lit. The coolers of soda and milk hummed as their compressors did their job, and the cash registered proudly displayed $0.00 in bright green cathode light.

I looked at the top of the door as I passed underneath. "Looks like the motor burned out somehow, that'd explain how it stayed open."

"Herman, we should close the door behind us," Aleksei whispered, "just in case one of those things wanders by." That was a great idea. It didn't take long for me to find the emergency catch and let the door swing gently back to the closed position. Once shut, I went one step further, and grabbed a nearby make-up display case. A gorgeous tiger of a redhead was pursing her lips to show off the latest brand of lipstick as I carefully moved the display in front of the door with a nod of approval from Aleksei. The door could be pushed open, but anyone doing so would knock over the makeup case, making a racket and alerting Aleksei and me of incoming trouble.

With our back secure, I nodded towards the trail of blood, and the big guy nodded in return. This time, I took the lead, carefully following the winding red streaks across the floor. It stretched across the entire front of the store, past the cash registers and the photo counter, before turning to the left and disappearing up the final aisle. Measuring each footfall and making sure not to step in the flood, I stepped lightly across the Walgreen's. I had one fist at the ready, thumb on the trigger of the vibro-smasher, prepared to go at a millisecond's notice. Rhino was being as quiet as he could too...which meant not moving very much at all. He was sliding his feet almost, barely lifting them, as he followed me.

As we got closer to the corner, where the trail turned, the sound of chewing reached my ear, punctuated with the occasional ripping noise. "Damn it," I muttered under my breath. I had known full well that the blood trail had probably been caused by a zombie, but still, I was holding out hope that, maybe, it was just a good old fashioned psychopath or gang banger. But no such luck, as the sound of growling was added to the mix. Sighing, I stepped around the corner of the aisleway, taking aim even as I was moving.

With his back to me, hunched over, chewing on a human leg, the zombie wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings, focusing solely on his acquired bounty. I didn't even give him a chance to react, firing off a level one blast from point blank range directly into the rear of his skull. Immediately, the leg dropped to the floor, and the zombie tilted to the side, motionless as his skull hit the tile. With him out of the way, I looked down at the body that the thing had been feeding on. In a blue hoodie sweatshirt, the guy was missing a large chunk of his throat. He was lying flat on the floor, eyes staring up at the ceiling. A chrome .38 was clutched in his right hand, and as I studied him, I could see the bullet wound just under his chin. For whatever reason, the guy had shot himself, and I was willing to bet it was mainly to avoid being eaten and torn apart by zombies, or just to ensure he didn't come back as one. In any case, a much more dignified way to exit the world and make sure you stayed gone.

My eyes involuntarily wandered down to his legs, or where his legs would have been, if one hadn't been ripped off and eaten by the zombie I just put down...

...or where his legs would have been if he had ANY lower body left to speak of. Where I had expected to see an attached leg, instead, there was a trail of intestines snaking out from his stomach. Blood and bile mixed at the base of the man's upper body, and a wide trail, much wider than the one at the front of the store, ran up the aisleway towards the back. On reflex, my eyes followed the trail, winding past the soda coolers, shelves of chips and cookies, and back towards the dietary supplements.

At the very end of the aisleway, a group of zombies, their hands full of flesh and muscles, were staring back at me. They crouched around the remains of the man's lower body. Drops of blood fell to the floor around his remaining leg and hips as they gazed at me, motionless.

"Not good," I said out loud.

That got them going. With a snarl, the closest one, a female, let the bounty in her hand plop to the floor, as the promise of something fresher drove her forward. The others came immediately, pushing up from the floor and starting to shuffle towards me and Aleksei. I counted six. Six, we could handle, no sweat, no problem...

The moans started from the next aisle over. And the one after that. Soon, the entire drug store was filled with the cries of the undead, not just the ones advancing up the dietary aid aisle towards us, but the ones we couldn't see, the ones who had been hiding, or that we had just flat out glossed over while following the blood trail. Damn it, Fred had been right...it wasn't the ones you saw, it was the ones you didn't see.

The confidence to take on six zombies at once faded in light of their reinforcements. I took a few steps back, ending up behind Aleksei. "Come on, man, let's blow this joint..."

His response was to crack his knuckles. "We got this," he growled in a bold manner. "There's six of them in this aisle. I could knock them out in my sleep."

"What?"

He bent forward at the waist, his hands reaching towards the floor. "You said it, Herman, we don't have time to find another drug store, and I'd bet that one would have a bunch of ghouls inside it to. If we're smart, Herman, we can take them..."

Ok, to be fair to my friend, and to defend myself, yeah, I saw his logic. Same story, different drug store, good odds of that happening. At the same time...those moans. They clawed and bit at your inner ear, each zombie adding their own little inflection to make the cacophony truly unique. I would imagine even someone like Iron Man would have second thoughts about diving into this melee...but there was Aleksei, who had told me to keep my head in the game the night before, getting ready to do...something.

"Come on, we can't risk this, there's too..."

"Just cover my back, Herman." He was down now, in a three point stance, and in an instant, I knew exactly what he was going to do.

"No, Aleksei, wait, this is...this is a VERY BAD IDEA!"

Either he didn't hear me, or he was ignoring me. With a loud, shelf-shaking roar, Rhino pushed off, and charged down the aisleway towards the crowd.

"!"

Rhino knocks things over.

He does this VERY well.

Aleksei's one of the strongest people I've ever seen, and in my chosen field, that's saying a lot. When he first put that suit on all those years ago, it was bonded directly to his skin. Couldn't take it off. Had to pee through a hatch in the front. You don't know what he had to do for the other thing. It took Justin Hammer making him a removable suit to let Aleksei live somewhat of a normal life again. Before that, though, when the Leader got a hold of him, he bombarded Aleksei with gamma radiation, which was the same stuff that turned the Hulk into...the Hulk. It ended up making Aleksei stronger and tougher...and it didn't quite stop. Ever since the Leader worked his magic, Aleksei's been able to hit harder and run further with each passing day. It's been a gradual process, one that's built up over several years, but with a few positive ends results. For one, Aleksei can bench press a U-Haul truck without breaking a sweat. Full-on, over the head, two pumps for luck before throwing it at Spider-Man. For two, at full-out sprint, Aleksei can apparently hit 100 miles-per-hour. Never seen it personally, but it's been documented. For three, those horns on top of his outfit. They look stupid, but they ain't for show. He can drive them through 2 inches of steel plating. And, for four...sorry...that suit he wears is bulletproof. And explosion-proof. And laser-proof.

So let's add all that together, boys and girls. Strong. Fast. Can slice through steel. And impervious to damn near every bit of external harm a person could inflict.

The perfect human cannonball.

I said earlier in the story, I'd bet even money there wasn't anyone or anything on this planet Rhino couldn't knock around, and I stand by it. Given a running start, Rhino would slam damn near anyone airborne. I've seen, and this was in person, the Hulk get knocked off his feet by Aleksei on a charge. Thor, the God of freakin' Thunder, got staggered when Aleksei rammed with his shoulder. When supervillains get drunk, and start throwing around stupid questions, one of the most popular ones is "what would happen if the Rhino charged the Juggernaut?"

Answer: the Juggernaut wouldn't budge. Tell me, though, you wouldn't pay to see that showdown on pay-per-view.

(Best question ever asked in those situations was asked by Boomerang. "Which one would you pick? Diamondback or the Black Cat?" Best answer every given to that question was given by, of all people, the Ringer. "I'm hardcore, I can take 'em both on.")

It's a sight to see, actually, and at times I feel privileged to witness it. Snarling, putting himself in a three point stance. Head lowered, but his eyes locked on the poor sap (or poor wall. Or poor car. Or poor Olympian God). And just pushing himself across the gap towards his target. It's a thing of beauty, save for whoever or whatever is on the receiving end. Normally, I'd be cheering on Aleksei as he imitated a speeding bullet...

...not this time, though.

His massive feet pounded down the aisleway, crunching and popping open bags of potato chips that had fallen off the shelves as he lumbered down the aisleway. It was a sight to see, I had to admit...watching someone run TOWARDS a group of the living dead. Aleksei was still roaring, a primal, rage-filled scream that drowned out the moans that filled the Walgreen's. The closest zombie to him, the snarling girl, lifted her arm to grab him as he approached, giving her limb full extension as clawing fingers sought Rhino out.

I heard the snap of her arm as Rhino's head slammed into her palm. A split second later, the zombie was bowled over as Rhino plowed right through her and the rest of the group. The girl zombie spun to the side, caught now by Rhino's shoulder as he charged down the narrow path. The next zombie staggered backwards from the impact of Rhino's head, and my friend's momentum carried it into the rest of the pack. In a few steps, each zombie had been knocked clear off its feet by the massive gray-skinned villain. And he wasn't down. Aleksei didn't just charge at them. He charged cleared through them. His feet stomped down, snapping limbs and crushing skulls with his powerful legs. By the time Rhino skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle, what had started out as a group of six ravenous undead had been turned into a barely twitching mass of limbs and blood, arms and legs askew.

"Jesus, Aleksei..." I said, in awe of the destruction.

He had to put a hand out to bring himself to a full stop before slamming into the rear wall of the pharmacy, cracking the plaster as his palm impacted the wall. Aleksei turned, and took a quick glance at the damage he had wrought, before lifting his head and yelling at me. "Come on, Herman, get up here and finish these things off! I'll clear the next aisle, you follow behind me and make sure they're down! MOVE!" His voice boomed across the Walgreen's and succeeded in getting my ass in gear. Rhino disappeared around a corner as I trotted quickly up the aisle, Pringles turning to dust under my boots. By the time I reached the remains of the first pack, Rhino's roar was passing by me over in the next aisle, as he charged his way back up to the front of the store. At my feet, there wasn't too much left of the undead that Aleksei has decimated. The heads of five creatures had been smashed like ripe melons. Their arms and legs were bent at impossible angles, and one of them...there was a wide hole in his chest, about the size of Aleksei's foot, the unbeating heart clearly visable through the shattered ribs. The final zombie, a girl in a BRATZ baseball cap, was trying to reach out to me, her forearm flopping uselessly from her broken elbow as her upper arm bone poked through town skin. For safety's sake, I put a quick level-one into each of their heads, starting with the still active one's skull as a coup de grace. By the time I had finished, my friend was calling me from the other end of the next aisle over. "Herman, mop up this aisle, I'm moving on!"

I couldn't help myself. "Clean up, aisle two, got it!"

X

"Man, this place is gonna smell rotten in a couple of hours, Herman."

"I ain't gonna clean it up," I replied as I finished the bottle of cold Aquafina. "Way I see it, whoever comes in here after us, the two of us did them a damn favor by clearing it out." On reflex, I threw the empty bottle into the trash can next to the cash register. "Aleksei, that was some damn nice work. I was ready to cut and run, man. What you did took a real pair of brass ones."

Rhino gave a shrug. "They're fragile. Seriously, we can just...they're slow. I could have probably danced around them. It's like you said earlier, as long as you're smart, Herman..."

"Yeah, yeah. Rub it in, why don't you? I'm the one who wanted to run away, and you were right. It was smarter to stand and put those guys down. Good call."

"Why did you want to run, Herman?" Aleksei finished his own bottle of water, a liter of Dasani. "You didn't' want to run earlier tonight outside the 7-11.

I looked up at the trail of carnage laid out in the aisle before us, stretching from the front of the store all the way to the pharmacy that sat at the back of the store. "Well...we were outside. A lot of room to run. Here...well, it's a bit cramped. If we had to run away, there was a chance we could have been trapped. I guess I was playing the room and not the people." One quilted hand slapped Rhino on his shoulder. "Those moans, Aleksei...they make me want to just get the hell out of Dodge when I hear them. They made me completely zone out and forget who I was in here with. You're a one man wrecking crew when you want to be."

He nodded, smiling a bit in jest as he responded. "I was afraid you decided being some sort of good guy was a bad thing."

After a few seconds, I shrugged. "Maybe. I mean...the first couple of times we've run into those ghouls, someone else's ass was on the line. That school bus full of kids, or Ashley, Robert, and Bobby in the 7-11. This time, it was our butts in harm's way. If we cut and run, no one else was gonna croak, you know? More personal responsibility, less worrying about what happens to other people. I mean, I don't want to get eaten, Aleksei. I mean to live."

"So do I, Herman. We got a job to do, though, and I don't mind smashing these corpses up to get it done. I think we're overgunned enough to do it." Aleksei was grinning at the prospect, though he sobered up a few seconds later. "I mean...they are corpses, right? They ain't still alive somewhere inside, Herman, are they?"

I shook my head. "I hope not, Aleksei. I mean...they're dead, they're all messed up. Even if they are...well, we'd be doing them a favor. But I'm pretty sure they're dead. They're just not dead and gone." The thought that I may have killed dozens of barely living human beings, instead of rotting mobile corpses, began to play across my mind. But I managed to grab it before it got too ingrained in my thought process. Sooner or later, I'd deal with it...but for now, it went into the toolbox and got locked away. Rhino was right. We had a job to do.

"Alright. The job." I opened up the pocket on my suit, and pulled out the list. "Let's grab the stuff we need and bring it up here to the front. Just set it on the counter...and try to keep it out of the blood. I really don't want to track this stuff back to my kitchen, Aleksei."

"Got it. Tell you what, Herman, you read, I'll grab the stuff if you read the stuff off."

"Good call. Grab the shopping cart..."

"They won't work. All those dead bodies, I'll get stuck."

"Oh. Yeah, that's a problem...alright, just haul it all up here best you can. Rhino lumbered up the nearest aisle. Behind him, I called out what we needed from the list. "Alright, from that aisle...any first-aid kits that are there, bandages, antiseptic, medical tape." As I was reading from the paper, Aleksei called out from halfway up the corridor.

"Herman, how many of each should I get?"

"I don't...half. Get about half of what they have on the shelves." I nodded to myself. "That way, we leave some behind in case anyone else shows up..."

Huh. I just channeled Rhino's supermarket idea from the night before. Grab some for us, leave the rest for any civilians. Guess great minds think alike...stop snickering out there.

In seemingly no time, the pile on the counter was large enough that I had to start separating the items just to make more room for the continuing flows of supplies that Rhino was bringing to the front of the store. It wasn't just first-aid and medical supplies, but food, snacks, water, and toiletries, including the items that Ashley had asked me to procure for her. Now, I've been around the block a few times, and I've traded barbs with every from Spider-Man to the Avengers...but when Rhino was there staring at me as I stammered out the...personal product...that Ashley needed...I mean, I can't even write what it was, so yeah, the mighty Shocker, can't even say or type 'tampon.'

Rhino just nodded once I managed to get the word out. "Regular or super abso..."

"Just grab both!" Under my mask, I could feel my face turning red from embarrassment. I walk around with a quilt as a suit with pride, and this is all it takes for me to blush. "Oh, man," I muttered as Aleksei put the pink box on the pile. "This is just...this is too weird for me, man."

"Why? It's just a box of tampons, Herman. What, you never had a woman leave a box of them at your place before?"

"No..." I studied my friend, understanding dawning in my mind after a few seconds. "Wait...you have?" Rhino gave a half-hearted shrug, and then turned away from me. "Whoa, Aleksei...who?"

"No one important," Rhino said. "Come on, Herman, let's get the drugs from the back. We're wasting time." He strode up the aisle towards the pharmacy in the back, and I was right behind him, looking at my friend with a new light in my eyes as we picked out way through the stomped and smashed remains of the no-longer-living-dead.

"Well, I can't believe it," I joked. "I didn't...I had no idea, Aleksei, that you even seeing someone!"

"I wasn't." Rhino's voice was low, growling a bit. "Herman, I really don't..."

"Oh, no, man. Come on, we need a little levity tonight, the way things have been going. You can't keep a secret like this from me!" The two of us were in the back of the store now, right before the pharmacy. I was looking down at the list even as I continued to gently pry at my armored friend. "Just...I never saw you at the get involved with anyone type, especially involved enough to leave...feminine products...at your place!"

Rhino sighed, sounding like a steam whistle when he exhaled. "It's not...Herman, it's..." Shaking his head, he gave me a wary look. "If I told you, ain't no way you'd believe me."

One hand on the counter, I put the other over my heart, resting against my uniform. "Honest, Aleksei. I'll believe you." Lowering my glove, I know we were wasting time...but...we were friends, Aleksei and I. Friends were supposed to tell each other these things, right? Hell, I told him about the time I got really hammered after a botched bank job and ended up going home with Anaconda, and Aleksei kept nailing me that I had slept with a woman who had gills. In my defense, I hadn't noticed...anyway, turnabout, fair play, is.

With another sigh, he looked down at his feet, and mumbled his response. When I didn't respond, he said it again, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. "I don't believe you."

"I knew it!" Aleksei shook his head, and nearly ripped the door to the pharmacy off its hinges. He stomped up the three small steps, muttering for me to follow. "This is why I kept my trap shut, Herman."

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry, Aleksei," I said, following him up the stairs. He was right, though. Unless Aleksei was pulling a joke or he was just remembering a very vivid dream, there was no way in hell it could have happened with the woman in question. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world. "I just...ok, I believe you, I just don't believe...I don't believe it. She-Hulk. Jesus Christ."

"Hand to God, Herman. And I didn't believe it either." He quickly tried to change the topic of conversation. "What's on the list?"

"Insulin for Bobby." Rhino studied the wall of drugs in front of him for a second before I reminded him, "it'll be in a refrigerator, actually. We'll get that last. Right now...anti-biotics and painkillers, those should be out here somewhere." I was staring at his wide back, watching my friend's massive finger run over the bottles as he squinted to read the labels. "Penacillin and amoxacillan, Vicodin, codeine...can you find that stuff, Aleksei," I asked him after a few seconds. "Or you want me to look?"

"I got it," he said, with a hint of annoyance. I waited patiently as he picked up a bottle of pills, the medicine rattling inside as he held it up to examine the label. "Epe...epen...epena...epenara..." He leaned in close, trying to make out the words. After chewing on his lower lip for a second, he shook his head and handed the bottle over to me. "You should do this, Herman. I'll start getting the stuff ready to move. I think we can get it all in one shopping cart and roll it back."

"You sure?" Rhino nodded, and I stepped aside to let him out of the pharmacy. He lumbered to the front of Walgreen's as I studied the bottles. It took me a few minutes, but soon, I had a bag filled with various medicines, anti-biotics, painkillers, and a couple of sleeping pill bottles as well. By the time I walked back up to the front, Rhino was looking at the pile of goods we had gathered. His hands were on his hips, an intent look on his face. I set the medicine on the counter next to the pile, and stood silently for a few seconds. He didn't move, didn't make a motion to load up the medicine, but towered over our bounty.

"Herman," he finally said in a low, quiet, thoughtful voice. "We're not doing this for the exercise. We need to bring more stuff."

I looked at the pile of drug store products sitting on the wide counter. "I don't think we can carry anymore, Aleksei. Right now, we're planning to wheel everything right past them," referring to the ghouls. "Weighing ourselves down would be a bad idea. I'd rather had stuff we could move then stuff we'd have to end up dropping in case we draw a crowd out on the streets."

"I know, but...Herman, how long are we planning on staying in your warehouse? Days, right? Well, what if that turns into weeks? At the very least, we're gonna need beer, or else Fred might kill someone over a warm Budweiser."

"Aleksei," I said, "I...this should all blow over in a few weeks, right? I mean..." I stopped once I heard what I was saying. "Ah, hell. I mean, the Avengers and SHIELD should get this under control. They always do."

"Yeah, but what if this is the thing they can't, Herman? This isn't like an alien invasion, this is..." He struggled for the analogy, but I interrupted him.

"You're right...damn it...alright. Weeks...well, we're covered with the medicine, that doesn't take up space. Food...we can grab the stuff from the freezers, I guess. Water, we can grab all those cases..." I snapped my fingers. "...and a bunch of plastic containers, the big tubs, we can fill those up in case the water gets shut off. What else..."

"Tarps and buckets, in case we need to catch rain. I saw it in...I saw it in a zombie movie, the one in London with the fast runners?"

"I don't think it'll come to that, but it can't hurt...batteries," I replied. "We're gonna probably need batteries just in case. And more toiletries, because it's gonna smell pretty ripe after a few days without a shower..." My hand ran over the top of my head as I pondered the task in front of us. "No way this will work. We don't have enough carrying power, Aleksei, unless we hotwire a truck."

Aleksei gave me a quizzical shrug with his shoulders and hands. "Herman, we can just hotwire a truck. There's plenty sitting out on the streets...but...damn, what if we steal someone's truck who ends up needing it?"

"We'll find a flat panel, like a U-Haul or a Ryder." I looked out at the drug store. Aleksei was right...there was an awful lot of stuff out there we really could use back at our 'rescue station.' Even if we just took half of it, it...it would make the living situation a lot more bearable. Plus, in case it did turn into a siege mentality, it didn't hurt to have supplies on hand. "Alright, Aleksei. We'll find a truck or something. Go back and grab some of those portable gas grills and some propane if they got it." Rhino moved away as I lifted my hand to turn on my communications system. "Fred, you there? It's Herman. No, man, we're fine. Listen...you got about 15 minutes to take a quick and dirty inventory. Yeah, I don't care that you just sat down to dinner, shut up and listen..."

X

"So much for wheeling it right past them."

The ghoul on the other side of the glass snarled, the side of his face pressing against the door as its hands clawed down the surface. Next to him, what was probably once a Fifth Avenue socialite, a purse hanging from her half-eaten arm, was gently tapping the glass. The big diamond ring she wore tapped against the door, a knocking noise accompanying each motion.

"We can handle the ones by the door, Aleksei. Just take these two out, and then hang a left. I there's a car dealership a few blocks up. Hotwire one of those babies and brings it back here, we load up, and we're gone." I took a hold of the makeup display, standing to the side, ready to yank it away from the door. Just beyond the door, Rhino nodded at me, his hands at the ready. "Alright...3...2...1...now!" I pulled the case away quickly. Lipstick and nail polish dropped to the floor as I flung it behind me. Almost immediately, the heavy automatic door began to swing open as the two ghouls pushed on it. Slowly, the pair shoved their way into the Walgreen's. Their hands grasped the edge of the door as they squeezed inside. I wondered as I watched the pair force themselves through the doorway...did they have a conscious plan, like "I'm going to push this door open with the help of my colleague here and help myself to a delicious pound of flesh?" Or was it more along the lines of "oh my god food must have it," and the shoving of the door was just the reflexive removal of a barrier to that end?

Ok. I have to focus, because even though there's only two of these things here, that's no time to engage in reflection. They'll be plenty of time when our asses are back behind welded steel. Lose your focus out here, and it'll just take one to end your life.

The male ghoul was almost inside when Aleksei grabbed him. He pulled the ghoul back quickly, yanking him through the narrow opening and flinging him onto the floor by his shoulder. The ghoul landed stomach first, and hissed at Aleksei as it pushed upwards. Aleksei's response was to stomp on the back of the ghoul's head, driving it into the tile floor. And I mean that literally. The pool of blood that formed around the ghoul's head had about three inches to fill, that's how hard Aleksei had driven his foot down.

The female ghoul was my responsibility. She didn't hiss or growl, but, through the glass, she gave me a very forlorn look, almost as if she knew what had happened to her corpse, but was determined to endure with grace and dignity. If her mouth wasn't surrounded by a ring of dried blood, I would have felt pity for her. A level two directly to her forehead ended her suffering. I caught her falling body, and dragged it inside, out of sight behind the counter. "Alright, let's go, Aleksei."

Rhino stepped out first, and I followed directly behind, closing the door behind me. Aside from the practically-headless corpse and the trail of blood, the Walgreen's could have passed for any other at a glance, and that's what I was hoping for, that if a zombie wandered by, it wouldn't look at the wide open door and collection of carnage, and wonder "hey, living humans did this, I wonder if they're still here?"

Later on, when discussing this with Fred, he waved a hand and told me that I was giving the living dead too much credit, that they were just mindless, emotion-free eating machines, incapable of any sort of rational thought. I didn't think that, though. I was slowly starting to think of them more along the lines of wolves, instinctive pack hunters who would demonstrate a rudimentary ability to sniff out and pounce upon their victims.

In the end, it would turn out both of us were wrong.

The two ghouls hadn't managed to draw attention to Rhino and I when they were trying to break into the Walgreen's, but now that we were on the street, we kept as low a profile as we could. We stayed to the sidewalk, trying our best to veer away from alleyways, ducking behind the parked cars lining the street, and minimizing our times in any direct lines-of-sight. Granted, I could have played that game with a minimum of trouble, but Aleksei wasn't built for it. He did his best, though, and we managed to make it the three blocks without attractive any attention from the living dead.

That trip, though...you could tell, easily, New York was under siege. I've lived in the Big Apple my entire life, and I've been here for the big events. I've even had a low-key hand in a few of them. But this was different. I remember looking up at the sky as a kid living over in Queens and seeing an alien in blue-and-purple towering over Manhattan. I remember, a few months ago, watching the Hulk smash his way through New York City, looking to get his hands on someone to make them pay for something. And that's among a LOT of other issues and incidents. Not once, though...really, not once did I think "it's hopeless." Sure, I thought "we're screwed" or "how the hell is the planet going to get out of this one?" But...for all I knock them, guys like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, they save the planet. A lot. And still find time to come kick the crap out of me and leave me to get arrested. You can't knock their dedication to humanity, even if it gets in the way of my attempts to live a life of easy leisure.

This time, though...from the south, heading towards the Battery, Rhino and I could make out not only the noise of automatic weapons, but also the orange glow of a large fire. A few blocks past where we were heading, a military convoy sped south through the intersection, accompanied by a NYPD cop car with flashing lights. And, every where you turned, you could catch sight of a staggering form or five, some of them moving towards the lights and sounds, others just minding their own business. When the world seemed like it was coming to an end, it always was the Avengers who stepped up and saved the day. But...this was happening all over the city, the country, the world, and not even Captain America could be everywhere at once.

Ok, Herman, you're not an Avenger, you sure ain't Captain America, so let's focus on what we NEED. Forget globally, think locally. We covered the three blocks without major incident, hunkering down behind a Ford Fusion illegally parked on the corner opposite the dealership. It was a used car place, sitting on the bottom floor of a parking garage in a brilliant use of mixed space. The floodlights were on, illuminating the lot with a harsh blue light that made it very easy to see the forms shambling among the vehicles. "Damn," I cursed. "The place is swarming with them. They probably saw the lights and were attracted like moths."

"What do we do now, Herman? Think we can take 'em?"

I stood up to get a better look at the car lot. The lenses in my suit clicked once, as the vision enhancers zoomed in. "No," I said as I saw just how densely populated and cramped the dealership was. "There's too many of them and not enough room to move around. I'd be a sitting duck trying to hotwire one of those things, even with you holding them off."

"What if I grabbed one of the cars and just dragged it out? We could get it started out in the street?"

"Not a bad idea..." My head swiveled as I looked for a truck we could use, preferably a big pick-up like Peter and Anne's, or a U-Haul type truck. "Alright, there's...no. No, it's too far in. You'd have to move a whole bunch of other cars out of the way first, and you might end up damaging the truck in the process. Damn it..."

"Come on, Herman, we can't spend too much time looking. We're letting our butts hang in the wind here." Aleksei looked around, checking our six, before leaning back over my shoulder. "I can move those cars, it wouldn't be a problem."

"You'd make too much noise, and the last thing we need is a bunch of those things seeing us and maybe following us back to the Walgreen's." My vision went back to normal as I stood up. "We'll have to find another place. Got any ideas?"

Aleksei thought for a few seconds. "Think there's a place a block or two uptown, a rental car place. They should have cars parked nearby."

"Hopefully they don't use that parking garage. Come on." We turned and started to head uptown, away from the dealership. About half a block into our journey, I slowed to a stop. "Aleksei," I said, pointing with one of my vibro-smashers, "is that the place?"

He studied where I was gesturing. "Yeah. Yeah, that is. Looks like we lucked out, Herman."

I didn't feel my friend's sense of enthusiasm. "Aleksei, who's going to leave a vehicle like that, in the middle of Manhattan, just parked in the middle of the street."

"Especially with its lights on."

"Yeah, especially with..." Pause. "Ah, damn it. I think it's abandoned." I weighed our options for a second, before motioned with my head. "Come on, let's check it out. If we're lucky..." No, this called for a different word choice. "...maybe...maybe the owner doesn't need it anymore."

"Cheerful thought, Herman."

The vehicle in question was a beautiful, all black, 2009 Hummer H2. The engine was idling as it sat outside an Avis Rental place. Its powerful headlights illuminated the storefront, which, as we approached, was revealed to possess intact glass windows and doors. What gave us reason for our cautious approach was the fact that all four doors were wide open. I couldn't see any blood as we approached or anything really out of the ordinary from where we were standing. As we carefully stepped towards the large SUV, both hands were raised, thumbs on the trigger of my vibro-smashers. From our angle, no one was visible inside the vehicle. Whoever had been driving and riding along, it looked like that had simply abandoned the vehicle. The real prize, though, was attached to the back of the vehicle – a medium sized U-Haul trailer, maybe 20 feet long, on the rear hitch. It was exactly what we had been looking for to help us get the goods from the Walgreen's. It was too perfect, too convenient. Something just wasn't right to me.

"Aleksei, what do you see?"

"An empty Hummer, Herman."

That's Rhino. Always astute.

Now, there was a chance that whoever was driving this thing was maybe holed up in a nearby building, or raiding a store or office for some supplies of their own. I wasn't about to steal someone's ride and leave them stranded, especially in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Any other time, that thing would have been in a chop shop and I'd be buying the first round at the Bar with No Name with my cut. But, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. There was practically no chance in hell of us finding an SUV with a hauling trailer like this again. "This could be a gold mine, Aleksei. We gotta at least check this out."

"I'm right with you, Herman." Whether Rhino meant he shared my thought process, or he had my back, or both, I was grateful either way. We stepped closer to the car, still not seeing anyone inside, living or dead. It wasn't until we were within twenty feet that Rhino tapped me on the shoulder, calling me to stop. "Herman, I think I stepped in something," he told me.

I had an idea what it was, the same idea I had had upon seeing the trail of blood just inside the Walgreen's. Looking down, I saw the puddle of blood that Aleksei, trailing behind me to the right, had stepped into. But...it looked a little off. I bent over, crouching a little, to look at the asphalt. It wasn't a smooth pool of blood like I had first suspected, but it wasn't from sinking into the sidewalk.

Instead, the red liquid sat on top of a pile of brass bullet casings.

"Watch my back," I said, ducking down to the ground. It turned out, I wasn't looking at a pool, but a large group of expended shots. Most of them were on the small side, probably from a pistol, but I could make out a few shells that probably came from a weapon like a submachine gun of some sort.

"There was a firefight here, Aleksei," I said, standing up and brushing my hands off on my uniform. "Someone fired off a whole lot of rounds, and they hit something."

"Yeah..." Aleksei moved out of the puddle, and scraped his foot along the around to remove the blood. "So where are the shooters? Or the dead bodies?"

"Good question. Let's check out the SUV, maybe we can find out something." We closed on the SUV, my vibro-smashers held at the ready while Aleksei flexed his fingers inside his suit. The trail of spent casings went to the rear passenger and front passenger doors of the SUV. Whoever had fired off those rounds have come out of the SUV shooting. So where the hell did they end up?

The keys were still in the ignition. They swung gently, the engine purring quietly as I stood outside the shotgun seat. Watching them sway, the driver's seat empty, no one to be seen...I had to do it. Not only was this perfect for hauling goods over a short distance through a war zone...but it was big enough that Rhino could fit into the shotgun seat without being too cramped. It'd be nice for the big guy to have a ride for once.

I slid into the passenger seat, moving across to the driver's side. "Alright, Aleksei. I'm making an executive decision." I adjusted the steering wheel for my height. "We're commandeering this vehicle for emergenAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

My sentence was cut off as two zombies lunged at me through the wide open driver's side door.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID.

I got greedy. I didn't check my peripherals...aka, my dumb ass didn't account for my surroundings. And, I admit, I screamed like a little girl when those two ghouls appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. Even as their fingers clutched at my uniform, trying to pull me towards them, their mouths were wide open, already salivating at the chance to rip the flesh off the bones of some stupid human who wasn't freakin' thinking about survival, instead pondering his brand new ride.

Luckily, my uniform saved me. The contact plates under my outer layer of quilting went off, blowing their hands away before they could get a firm grip. Wide eyed, I swung my hands around, a level two already in the works as I turned in the driver's seat. One shot from each glove dropped the zombies before they could recover. Immediately my eyes were scanning the area behind them, looking for any other advancing zombies.

The good news was there weren't any more zombies moving towards me.

The bad news was it was because they were all feasting on the poor suckers from the SUV.

My eyes, wide with fear, widened further as I saw the field of carnage laid out before me. A large number of zombies were scattered across the city street. They had been blocked from our field of vision by the SUV, crouched down on the asphalt as they tore into the dead bodies. I watched as a zombie staggered away from a group, crouched lowly, his teeth digging into the Armani-clad arm. The .45 pistol fell from the arm's fingers as the zombie spat out the expensive fabric before chewing on the savory flesh, his eyes focused on nothing but his prize clutched in his hands.

Spread out before me, the undead were feasting on at least three corpses. They hissed and growled, several fighting over the choicest parts of the bodies. Two zombies pulled at a set of intestines, snarling as the tube refused to be pulled in half. About ten feet from where I was sitting, stunned by disgust, the undead had their hands in the chest cavity of a well-dressed Italian man. Poking out from the edge of the group, his unmarred face was locked in an eternal look of absolute terror. The zombies moaned slightly as they pulled out fresh organs, still warm and dripping with blood. Without any hesitation, they bit and tore into the lungs, the heart, rib bones, sucking and chewing at the flesh. They didn't make noises of joy or appreciation, but simply groaned as the smacking and chewing reached my ears. More brass casings lay scattered on the ground, covering a wide area as they glinted in the glow of the streetlights.

The most interesting thing...and I focused on this mainly to pull my attention away from the buffet...however, were the other, non-snacked-upon bodies. Near the furthest collection of feasting ghouls, several zombies lay in broken heaps. As opposed to the mass of bone and sinew that Rhino had created during his rampage at the Walgreen's, this was more...personal. Ankles had been twisted until they broke. Arms had been snapped and lay at odds angles on the ground. And in one case that I could see, a head rested backwards on its body, its neck broken in one smooth twist. Whoever had been in this SUV had apparently gone down fighting.

And still lost.

"Jesus." Aleksei was peering over my shoulder. The SUV had sunk a few inches from his added bulk, but the suspension easily held. "What happened?"

"A massacre," I said quietly, in terrified awe of the scene laid out before us.

Aleksei gently poked me in the shoulder. "Herman, we got what we came for, I say we load up and get the hell out of here." A good plan. A great plan, actually. The guys who had been driving this SUV were being eaten in front of us. They didn't need it anymore. It was ours for the taking.

I slid out the front driver's side door.

My feet hit the ground as my mind tried to process just what the hell I was doing. Rhino was doing the same thing behind me, using more vulgar terminology. The metal boots I wore clicked on the asphalt, crushing several of the spent casings, as I moved towards the nearest group of zombies. They didn't even notice me, engrossed in their meals. Gore dripped through clenched fists as they devoured the poor sap in their midst, and little droplets of blood flew through the air as they tore into the flesh, whipping their heads around to pull the skin away from the bone and gristle.

I probably could have just put a level one blast into each one of their skulls without any trouble. But when I brought up both my vibro-smashers, my thumbs were firmly holding down the trigger, charging up my weapons. A level three blast would have caught most of them in the area-of-effect, and sent them sprawling. It was powerful enough to push a car across the road, like I did the night before when engaging Hawkeye, hopefully scattering the ghouls and allow me plenty of time to deliver the necessary coup-de-graces to finish them off.

I kept holding down the trigger. When I finally fired, it was a level four blast that went off in the middle of the group.

Under pressure, I could probably recall nearly every time I ever fired off a level four blast. They crack sternums. They buckle concrete. They blow holes in bank vaults. And I feel them in my body, shaking me like a subway train rocketing past just inches from my face. My suit absorbs most of the backblast and reverberations, but I still experience the vibrations shooting up my arms, rattling my joints. I don't break them out on a whim. They're either calculated efforts, or something I throw in desperation during a bad job or tough scrap.

Or, in this case, when I've lost my damn mind.

The corpse buckled and flew into the air at the epicenter of the blast. The asphalt underneath it cracked, spiderwebs shooting out from the impact crater. The ghouls who had been feasting were blown backwards, forcibly scattered away from their prize. One, a long-haired blonde, landed directly at my feet, its eyes glazed over as it looked up at me. Before it could focus and realized that I was another meal, I fired a level two into its forehead, putting it down for good, before studied the rest of my targets. Three zombies still twitched, trying to get to their feet in order to devour this new threat, but the rest of the group were motionless, their bodies unmoving on the ground. At close range, my blasts can sometimes cause enough overpressure to give someone a solid concussion. And in the case of the undead, that was enough head trauma to put them down for good.

I finished off the still-moving ghouls with level twos to their forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rhino coming from the front of the SUV. It sounded like he was speaking through cotton when I heard him ask me "what the hell are you doing, Herman?"

My response was to step away from him, towards the next group. Some of them were rising to their feet, forgoing their current meal for something a little fresher. Even as I walked, I was charging up another level four blast, both vibro-smashers whining as I held down the trigger. The blast rippled through the air and slammed into the middle of the pack, knocking the ones who had stood up off balance. Some of them fell to the ground, never to move again, and a level two to those who were moving finished the job.

Rhino had his hands out, looking at me in angry confusion. I knew he was yelling at me, but I didn't care. The third group was the biggest, with zombies pushing in, hands reaching and grabbing. Probably chowing down on multiple corpses. This time around, I fired off two level four blasts in a row. Several zombies were caught in mid-air by the second blast, looking like objects in some twister juggler's show as they twisted above the street. As my attacks parted the crowd, I could make out two corpses, intertwined with each other, their clothes shredded and torn from tooth and claw.

They were the last zombies who had taken part in the massacre that was spread around this part of the block. My gloves were aiming almost of their own accord, my hands moving and firing at any zombie that was still showing signs of unlife. The sounds of the blasts were dulled in my ears, the vibrations going up my arms ignored as my quilted suit of armor absorbed the energy from my attacks. They never stood a chance. Not one ghoul endangered me as I finished them off from short-range. Maybe the explosions stunned them or scrambled their brains from the overpressure, but in any case, for this moment, they were all paying the price for the murder they had committed here this evening.

Soon, it was down to one. It didn't even get to its feet, but the balding ghoul in a dark blue flannel shirt crawled on the ground towards me on bloody legs. I stepped forward to meet it, passing by its fallen comrades. At seven feet away, I halted, and raised both vibro-smashers, aiming for its skull. It didn't moan or make any noise, simply reached for my ankle with one hand as it pulled itself along with the other. I held down the trigger...

...nothing.

It kept crawling for me as I pushed the trigger again. The button had locked, refusing to let me fire my weapons. It took me a split second to realize what happened, and a glance at the gauge on the side of one of my gloves confirmed that fact. I was out of juice. My gloves had run dry during my little rampage, and the gloves refused to fire without any energy. Still, a third time, I jammed my thumbs down on the buttons, even as I knew they'd refuse to budge.

I felt a hand try to grab my ankle. Looking down, I saw the zombie trying to pull himself closer to my legs, mouth open wide. I stepped back, away from his swiping fingers. Again, my gloves clicked on "empty" as I tried to fire, the noise sounding like a gunshot to my ears. Aside from the click, now I could hear my breathing, starting to quicken in my chest. A little drop of sweat formed on my forehead, running between my skin and my mask as the bald zombie pushed with his ruined legs, still mov...

His head disappeared as a large grey foot smashed down on top of his bald spot. With a twist for good measure, the foot lifted back up, revealing what looked like a Cherry Oreo snowcone, with the crater as the cup.

I looked up...up...up...into the angry eyes of the Rhino. "Ok, Herman. You better screw your head on straight..."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving a hand at the dead zombie at our feet. "Come on, let's..."

Massive fingers grabbed my chin, ignoring the firing of the contact plates. Rhino held my head in place, his eyes narrow as he spoke again, just inches away from my face. "I mean it, Herman," Aleksei's voice rumbled, like rocks rolling down a hillside. "You're not just playing with your life, you're playing with mine." This close, he didn't have to yell. He didn't have to raise his voice. He just had to be the Rhino, seven feet of unstoppable force. His eyes locked directly on mine, his face compressed in anger, jaw firm. I've seen Rhino mad before...but never this close, and never this personal. "Now," he growled, "are we straight?"

I had never felt so small in my life as I nodded. "Yeah...yeah, Aleksei. We're straight." I broke his gaze, and he let go of my chin, taking a step backwards to give me room. Having a walking tank in your face tends to force you to deal with reality, and I slowly took stock of what happened, running a hand over the top of my uniform. All around us were motionless bodies of the twice-dead. There were three distinct clumps, all around the half-eaten bodies, with the zombies lying around the corpses in circles. The only sound I could make out was the purring engine of the Hummer and the occasional sounds of violence reaching us through the concrete canyons of the Big Apple.

"Whoa," I said, half to myself. "Did I do this?"

"Yeah, Herman," Rhino said. "Mind telling me what the hell you were thinking?"

"I...er..." After a few seconds, all I could do was shrug at my friend. "I don't know. I really don't. I...I saw red, man. I..." Sighing, I nodded to the Hummer behind Rhino. "Look, let's not stand around and talk about this. Let's get this truck back to the drug store and just get the hell home, ok?"

Rhino agreed. "Alright, Herman. But we are gonna talk about this, because you've been really stupid in the past..." The words trailed off. Rhino's jaw, as I watched, slackened slightly. He looked over my shoulder, and the anger from his voice was gone, replaced by a sense of resignation mixed with disbelief.

"Aw, crap."

That got me to turn around. On the far side of the biggest pile of zombies that I had dispatched, one form was getting to its feet. It was a large human-shaped being, bigger then a normal person. One arm was missing, just below the shoulder, and its neck and torso were a mess of bites and claw marks. It stood straight, its good arm sticking out from the cuff of a three-piece suit that probably cost more than I could steal in a week.

It was the face that had my attention. A close-cropped, flattop haircut and sharp, pointed teeth. And pale white skin. Now, maybe half the ghouls on Manhattan had pale white skin as the blood was drawn away from the outer layer of skin. But the figure in front of us...its pale white skin had always been its calling card, even when he had been alive. Any criminal worth his salt would recognize the figure in front of us. I had even done a few jobs for him in my lifetime. And as a zombie, missing an arm, he still cut a striking, imposing figure.

"Tombstone," I breathed, just as he started walking towards us.

The gangster, who had once held a large amount of the New York underworld in his pocket, stalked towards us on massive legs. His teeth were bared at us, and he had very little of the slow, shuffling gait we had seen the past few days. It made sense to me now. Tombstone and some of his thugs had been out on an excursion, maybe trying to leave the city, or picking up a stash somewhere, when they got jumped by a large group of ghouls. His bodyguards had gone down fighting, and so had Tombstone, going hand-to-hand at the very end before being brought down.

But...much like the Wrecker, Tombstone had strength and stamina above any of his thugs. Even I was wary to ever throw down one-on-one with the gangster. So how the hell did a bunch of zombies bring him down?

I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as Rhino stepped forward. "Stay behind me, Herman, I got this one." He clenched his fists, setting his feet as Tombstone, a low snarl forming in his throat, stalked towards him, the biggest and closest target for the gangster. I looked down at my gauntlets, which were just now starting to recharge. Hopefully, Rhino could handle a zombiefied Tombstone, but I stepped to the side, giving myself a field of fire, just in ca...

Tombstone suddenly stopped, about ten feet from Rhino. His body went ramrod straight, and his white eyes opened wide. His body shook slightly, twitching as we looked on in confusion. "What the..." escaped Rhino's mouth as three small red dots appeared on the gangster's forehead, blooming slowly into wounds. The still-fresh blood in his body was a sharp contrast to his marble skin. The right dot began to drip down the side of his face, running in a straight rivet on his cheek.

After what sounded like a tearing sound, Tombstone's body dropped to the ground, collapsing in a heap amidst the other dead ghouls. Behind him, barely coming up to the gangster's shoulderblades, the scruffy figure in question smirked at the two of us around the stub of a lit cigar. With a screeching metallic sound, the blades he used to damage Tombstone's brain slid back into their holders.

"Well, look at this. The Shocker and Rhino playin' exterminator." The figure glared at me, apparently not too amused or pleased at our presence. "Care to explain what the two of you are doing out on the flamin' streets without a babysitter, bub?"


	14. No Good Deed

Great. Wolverine.

There are certain heroes you don't want to mess with. Well...you really never want to mess with a hero, period. Doesn't matter if it's a god like Thor, or a scrub like Turbo. They always seem to have everything on their side. Powers, abilities, or even just dumb luck, it all seems to come together to halt a bad guy like me in my tracks. Among the supervillain community, we tend to call it "The Luck of the Good," when everything comes together to stop a bad guy cold and get him or her sent up the river.

Wolverine, though...you can break out the standard clichés. Rebel, loner, doesn't play by the rules, etc, etc. The fact of the matter is, some heroes just have..."it." Iron Man has his power armor and gobs of money. Daredevil's brave. Spider-Man doesn't know when to quit. Wolverine's quality is tough to put a finger on, but if I had to quantify it...it was his look. He may be short, and he definitely has a stupid looking head of hair. But one good glance at him and both the conscious and unconscious parts of your brain tell you, in stereo, "do NOT get into a fight with this man, he'll gut you without blinking."

I've never had the pleasure of...tangling...with Wolverine. We've crossed paths once, when I was locked up in the Vault, and a bunch of superheroes were running through the place for some reason. One of them said something about collateral damage, and Wolverine happened to be passing by my cell at the time. He shot me a smirk and said something along the lines of "oh, yeah, the Shocker could bring this whole place down, makes me quake in my boots."

Most villains, now that they're confronted with a superhero, who slighted them once upon a time, would probably be screaming about payback, charging up their powers, making a big scene, and throwing themselves at Wolverine with dreams of karmic justice dancing in their heads. Not me. I remembered the slight, and yeah, it bugged me, but...

...this was freakin' Wolverine. Who, without warning, had just put down Tombstone without fanfare, quickly and easily. No way was I dumb enough to tangle with him, or even antagonize him...

"Well, you two kids gonna stand there, or try to answer the question? What are you doing out on the streets tonight," Wolverine asked again.

"Just looking for a ride," I answered, motioning to the SUV with one hand. "We got stuff to move and needed a trailer or a big truck."  
"Herman," Rhino said in a low voice, "what are doing? Don't tell this guy anything, he might run us in."

"Got better things to do, Rhino, then worry about you two sissies." Wolverine stared walking towards us, stepping over the fallen Tombstone. "Only thing that concerns me is that you two are standing in my way, and ain't in the mood for a tussle right now, especially since I heard you and your little boom-booms as I was coming down the block."  
Oh, Christ, he was coming right at us. "Whoa, Wolverine, we ain't looking for a fight, either," I squeaked, my hands up, pointing away from him. "Seriously, we just needed a truck and the car place down the block is overrun, so we looked this way, and found Tombstone and his crew dead like this. All we want is go get in the truck, pick up our supplies, and head back home. Right, Aleksei?"  
Rhino towered over the short Wolverine by almost two feet. He had a hard look on his face as he studied the mutant, rubbing his hand with his chin like he was sizing up Wolverine. Oh, God, Aleksei, not here, especially since my gloves are about five quarts low...

"Right, Herman," Aleksei said quietly. "Got a bunch of people back at the warehouse, Wolverine, and we hit up a drug store over a few blocks for supplies."

"Huh. Supplies, stuff like cash and electronics?"

"Actually, anti-biotics and first-aid stuff," Aleksei replied in a deadpan manner to Wolverine's snark His eyes narrowed. "And some food, water...stuff to ride out a hurricane. Or Galactus."

The short hero was looking up at Rhino's face as he came up to us. His hands were in the pockets of a beaten black leather jacket, and the stub of his cigar moved slowly from one side of his mouth to the other. "Just supplies, huh? No money from a bank or stuff from a Verizon store?"

Aleksei blinked. "Actually, Herman, hitting a Verizon store wouldn't be..."

"Not helping, Aleksei," I muttered. Wolverine leaned in closer to Rhino...and sniffed. I watched as the feral hero apparently gave my friend a nasal once-over, like a dog checking for a scent.

"Huh. Guess you might be telling the truth. Smell blood, brains, and cheap beer on you, Rhino. Long night of zombie stomping, huh?"

"They keep getting in the way, Wolverine," Rhino answered. "Kind of like you are. You want to step aside and keep walking, do your thing and let us do ours."

"That right, bub?" Wolverine bent his neck to one side, and I heard the sound of metal cracking against metal. "You think you can run me down in case I don't feel like moving?"

"Whoa...look, man, just let us get in the truck and drive way." The two were still staring at each other as I spoke. "No problems, no fuss, no fighting. Last thing we need is to draw more attention to ourselves, ok?" Wolverine turned slowly to stare at me now, looking me over like a hunter stares at a deer through a gunsight for a few tense seconds.

"One question, Shocker," he finally said. "You're still hiding out? You didn't hear Norman Osborn's little speech about not hiding behind closed doors?"

I couldn't help but bark out a small, humorless laugh in Wolverine's direction. "Forget Osborn's Order, Wolverine. The day I listen to the Green Goblin..."

After a moment of silence, Wolverine smirked in return, a tight smile on his face. "Right answer, Shocker. Alright, you two get a move on," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, "and don't do anything stupid. It's bad enough out there tonight without the villains coming out to play."

My shoulders slumped in relief. "Thanks, man. Seriously..."

Rhino was still staring intently at the hero as Wolverine nodded, and shouldered his way between us, heading for the front of the SUV to pass around it. Curiosity overcame me, and I called out to him as he passed the first set of dead bodies. "Hey, what the hell are you doing out here, Wolverine? Ignoring Osborn's Order too?"

It took him a few seconds to answer, probably deciding whether or not he wanted to tell me. "Research place down near City Hall. Curt Connors is human for once, and thinks there's something in one of the federal buildings, something the FDA was studying, that might help with the disease, virus, whatever the flamin' hell it is. Figured it was a nice night to get out of Central Park, gut a couple of zombies, get some exercise. You got anything else you want to ask," he said over his shoulder.

"Yeah." Rhino stepped forward, staring directly at the mutant. "Just...how bad is it out there? The TV ain't telling us anything, just blowing smoke up our asses. A straight answer would be appreciated, Wolverine."

The mutant turned to look at us. He spoke one word, and that was all he really needed to say.

"Bad."

X

The level-one blast dropped the former Islanders' fan to the ground. "How are we doing, Aleksei?"

"Two more trips," the big guy called as he was heading back into the Walgreen's. "Looks clear on this side."

"Roger. " As gunshots echoed from somewhere a few blocks away, I stepped backwards, both gloves held at the ready. Several corpses were scattered around the trailer backed up to the front door of the drug store, having come at us in drips and drabs over the past ten minutes. The trip back from where we had run into Wolverine had been uneventful. It had been a tight fit for Aleksei, but he rode shotgun as I drove the Hummer. The SUV handled like a dream, and Tombstone had been kind enough to leave us a gas tank 3/4ths full.

He had also been kind enough to leave us a treasure trove.

When we had arrived at the drug store, I managed to get the back end close enough to the storefront that the trailer's ramp ended right where the electric door began. Rhino had lifted the door to the trailer, ready to start moving our supplies so we could get the hell out of there, and gave a whistle loud enough that it drew my attention as I shut the Hummer's engine off.

Yeah, I know, I should have kept the engine running, but do you know how much gas these things guzzle?

The trailer had been full of Tombstone's ill-gotten loot. Leather duffel bags stuffed with bundles of cash. A reinforced briefcase full of gold bars, so heavy that I could barely pick it up. Several pieces of artwork that I recognized from news stories a few years back, part of a museum heist at the Met. And guns. Lots of guns, pistols, shotgun, assault rifles, and, somehow, it looked like Tombstone had gotten his hands on some experimental energy weapons as well. In normal times, a haul like this, without worrying about reprisals from Tombstone, would have set me up nearly for life.

Right now, though, it all took up room.

I had to move a couple of the money bags around in order to make space for the supplies that Rhino was bringing out of the Walgreen's. I treated the goods with respect, but at the moment, the riches at my disposal didn't matter so much as getting all the stuff loaded up and our asses on the road back to TriBeCa.

By the time I had made enough space for all the supplies, the first of the undead had shown up. Two ghouls lumbered out of a nearby alleyway as Rhino brought out the first armful, consisting of medicine and bottled water. "You grab the stuff, Aleksei," I said as I stepped forward towards them. My gloves were working on half-capacity as I fired off two level-one blasts into their heads, sending them down to the sidewalk. "I got your back."

The zombies came, but singly, or in pairs. They shuffled, limped, lunged, and crawled. They reached out with two arms, or one arm. They moaned, groaned, and snarled. And there were more of them coming for me and Aleksei now at the Walgreen's. But I kept my head, focusing on small, precise vibrations to the head to put the ghouls down for good, keeping them well past arms length as I took them down. Rhino, without fail, brought the supplies out, dropping them in the trailer and heading right back inside, and I kept him safe while he did so. In just a few minutes, Rhino nodded to me as he set the propane grills on top of the briefcase of gold. "One more, Herman, and we can go."

"Right, man. I'll get the car started," I told him after finishing off a teenager covered in tattoos. I carefully, looking over my shoulders, moved towards the front of the Hummer. From someplace close by, the sound of gunfire had been steadily ongoing, automatic weapons firing in short bursts. I couldn't isolate the sound with the noise bouncing off of the tall buildings around us, but it was easy to determine that it wasn't immediately close. If the gunfire wasn't coming my way, I'd burn that bridge if we came across it.

After double and triple-checking the street for any sort of movement, one hand reached inside the open door to turn the engine over...

The interior of the Hummer darkened, something blocking the light from the streetlamps. Immediately, I spun around, gloves out, expecting something to be rising up behind me, eager to grab a bite. But nothing was behind me...

...it was above me. Something passed over my head, a shadow falling over my body for a second. I glanced upwards, thinking in a panic that a zombie had somehow climbed onto the roof of the Hummer, about to pull some ninja/Iron Fist crap and get the drop on me. But nothing crouched or dove from the roof. "What the..." I muttered in confusion, staring around at the tall buildings. Was it a bird, or a plane, or something else?

My eyes were drawn to a corner of the apartments across the street from the Walgreen's. Eight, maybe nine stories high, tucked between two taller buildings. Lights burned in some of the windows, and the security door to the lobby was closed and intact. Nothing moved that I could see. Maybe it had just been my imagination. Ever since my little rampage earlier, I had to focus on remaining calm and focused on the task at hand. My nerves, on edge for the past two nights, were finally catching up with me. I need some downtime, a chance to rest and recoup...

Something shifted on the rooftop, immediately drawing my attention. Against the bare bit of night sky visible through the gaps in the buildings...it sat on the edge of the low brick wall, looming like a gargoyle. I could feel eyes on me, locked on from nine stories above the street. It crouched, almost shapeless, clutching the brick. I tried to focus on it, my vision enhancers clicking once to get a better look...

The loud slam of the trailer door caused me to jump, yelping a bit to myself. "Ready to roll, Herman," the deep voice of Rhino said from behind me as his footsteps rumbled a bit on the pavement. "Everything good out here?"

"Yeah..." I looked back up at the roof of the building. The shape was gone, the protective masonry that surrounded the roof free of skulkers. "Yeah, Aleksei," I said, blinking under my mask to clear my vision. "Let's get the hell out of here. I'm reaching the end of..."

The sound of wood crashing onto the street interrupted my sentence. Both Rhino and I turned in the direction of the sound, as glass shards fell onto the broken remains of a wooden chair, tinkling on the asphalt. Rhino saw it first, pointing with a gray finger at the apartment building. "There!"

On the top floor of the building, one of the windows had been broken, and someone was leaning out of it. "HEY!" They yelled down at Rhino and I in a high-pitched voice, arms waving wildly. "HEY, UP HERE! HELP!"

"Oh, God...that's a kid, Herman." Rhino was right. Maybe in their early teens, younger then Ernesto, screaming his lungs out at us, pleading for assistance.

"HELP US! THEY'RE BREAKING DOWN THE APARTMENT DOOR! PLEASE, MISTERS, HELP!"

It took just a split second look between Aleksei and me, and then both of us were sprinting for the building's front door.

X

The third kick did the trick. The security door flew off its hinges, shoving the furniture block it out of the way as it sailed across the lobby. A zombie feasting on a corpse near the elevator looked up just in time for the edge of the door to impact square in its temple. The fragile bone shattered, exposing the brain to the full brunt of the impact, and the creature fell to the ground, motionless.

Rhino pulled his foot back, giving me room to run into the lobby, my friend lumbering on his heels directly behind. A second zombie snarled as it stood up from its dinner, angry at the interruption. A level two took care of it before it could complain anymore. I heard the power alarm on my gloves begin to chime, while simultaneously, a warning popped on my suit's heads-up display. I was working on nearly an empty tank, the level one's outside the Walgreen's sucking up what little power I had recharged during our drive from the rental car place. Rhino was going have to do the heavy lifting...but in close, confined quarters, that would work out for the best.

I moved forward, past the broken pile of couches and chairs that had blocked the front entrance, heading for the elevator bank, noting the '9' at the end of the row of numbers...

I didn't see the corpse immediately in front of me. I felt my foot catch in its side, and I fell forward. My hands immediately shot out to break my fall. The good news was, I caught myself, landing like I was doing a push-up and saving my knees from hitting the tile floor. The bad news, it gave me an up close and personal look at another corpse. This one was missing half its face...literally, half its face had been eaten away, down to the muscle and bone. One eye looked out from a naked socket, staring down at the pool of blood its owner's skull rested in.

"Oh, Christ," I muttered, quickly climbing back to my feet. Several corpses were scattered across the lobby of the apartment building. The majority of them lay at our feet, each one looking like a pack of wild animals had torn them apart, with a few more scattered across the room, each bearing obvious bite wounds across their exposed skin.

Also laid out before us were several couches and chairs. From the pattern, it wasn't hard to deduce that they had once served as a barricade against the front door of the apartment building; a barricade that had still been intact when Rhino had kicked the door in. "They locked themselves in," I found myself saying out loud. "But those things still made it inside..."

"Elevator or stairs?" Aleksei asked impatiently, moving past me into the lobby. "Elevator might be faster...you think it could hold me, Herman?"

I looked up at the bank of elevators, two of them side-by-side at the opposite end of the lobby. Both elevators were on the first floor, but each one had a wide trail of blood leading to the base of their brass doors. A vision came into my head...both of those elevator doors opening wide, and a horde of decaying creatures pouring out from the confined spaces, arms grasping, overwhelming the two of us...

"Stairs, it'll be quicker," I answered. Aleksei led the way, yanking open the door and thundering up the steps, and I followed right on his heels. The stairs, poured concrete, protested at his motions, legs pistoning down as he took them two at a time. Around the fourth floor, I was starting to gasp for breath, the evening's activities finally starting to catch up with us, burning past the adrenaline, but Aleksei never slowed down, and I pushed myself to keep up with him. Sweat was pouring down my face, between the quilted fabric and my skin, by the time we reached the ninth floor. Aleksei threw the door open, revealing to us a long, carpeted hallway. Faux brass lanterns hung from the walls, yellow light bulbs giving off a dim light. About midway down the passage, the zombies had congregated. We could see some of them raising their fists in the air, pounding against one of the apartment doors. The rest of them, the ones on the edges, shoved and pushed, arms flailing against their brethren, trying to get closer, reminded me of a rugby scrum. "Aleksei," I said, pointing towards the crowd, "think you can clear a path?"

I didn't even need to ask, though. Aleksei was already in a three-point stance, head lowered. "Way ahead of you, Herman," he growled. A few seconds later, he took off, shoulders barely clearing the walls as he unleashed a furious charge. The floor shook with every step he took, the lamps shaking on the walls. A silent prayer crossed my lips as I found myself hoping the wooden floor had a strong foundation. It should, if this building was up to New York City building codes...

..."oh, man, let this building be up to code," I said as I ran behind Rhino. Every creak made me wince, and I swore, mixed in with the pounding on Aleksei's feet and the moaning of the undead, I heard the cracking of wood under his feet. But, somehow, the floor held over the course of his charge, and Rhino's massive bulk slammed into the crowd of undead, the Immovable Force telling the abominations of nature to move aside and let the man go through.

This crowd was much bigger than the ones Aleksei had handled across the street at the Walgreen's. He didn't barrel through the zombies, but rather shoved the entire pile further down the hallway. Zombie barreled into zombie, some of them flailing about, while other falls down like stacks of dominos. But Rhino didn't rest, instead flexing his massive arms and shoving the closest ghouls even further away. "Get that door open, Herman! I'll hold them off!"

"Roger!" Ok, Herman, smash and grab, break down a door, get the kid and anyone else inside, and then blow this popsicle stand. I heard Rhino crack his knuckles, and he cocked his arm back as I lifted my foot. As he threw a punch, annihilating the jaw of a middle-aged woman, I lashed out, jamming my foot directly under the doorknob of the apartment door, a solid kick that shattered the lock. The apartment door flew open, banging against the wall. The curtains flapping in the broken window across the way confirmed that this was the right apartment (the horde of zombies banging at the door should have been enough, but there's nothing wrong with a secondary source of confirmation). I stepped inside, my gloves up at the ready. "Alright," I called loudly, hoping to be heard over the sounds of Rhino's brawling in the hallway, "we're here to..."

Something lunged at me, and I just managed to catch it from the corner of my eye. I stepped back...and just managed to avoid the heavy end of a swinging baseball bat. The weapon whooshed past my stomach, hitting the wall with a loud crash. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," I yelled, even as the wielder set up for another swing. I was ready for it this time, though, and easily caught the bat in mid-swing with my padded hands. "What the hell," I yelled, pulling the bat out of the guy's hands. "Calm down, man, we're here..."

He couldn't have been more then thirteen years old, I realize as I rip his only defense out of his grip. The kid's staring up at me with wide, fear-filled eyes, his lower lip quivering. "Ah, Christ," I muttered. "Look, sorry, but you can't go around swinging baseba...ok, ok, yeah, you can, but not at the guys trying to pull your as...butts out of the fire."

"You're...you're here to save us?" The kid's face had disbelief and relief vying for top billing as he looked at me. "But...you're a bad guy! I've seen you on TV, and my older brother makes fun of your name!"

You're kidding me...all the kids in the world and I have to find one who's actually seen the few times I made the nightly news. "Kid, right now, I ain't a bad guy. My friend and I were the guys you yelled at down on the street, and we're here to rescue you. Now, we don't got much time, so we gotta go, right now." I'm finding it easy to keep my voice calm. Maybe it's because I'm dealing with a little kid instead of an adult who actually knows what rational fear really is. It's a lot harder to deal with then irrational fear, and I'm assuming that this kid doesn't quite understand...well, he knows the dead are trying to eat him, but I'm betting the wider implications, like the collapse of society, are escaping him.

Lucky bastard.

"O...ok. Let me get my kid sister," he replies after a blessed second of hesitation.

"Alright, just make it quick." The kid runs over to the couch, and I see him duck down and lift up the dust ruffle. As he's doing this, I yelled to the outside hallway, "Aleksei, talk to me."

"It ain't a walk in the park, Herman, hurry it up in there," his voice bellowed in response.

"Working on it!" The kid is flat on his stomach. I can't quite make out what he's saying, but he's speaking to whoever was under the couch, his hand reaching under the furniture. I hurried over, getting down on one knee next to him, trying to listen to what he's saying.

"...it'll be ok, Sally, these guys are here to help us! Come on, take my hand, it'll be alright."

I can barely make out the response, but I catch the words "bad man" somewhere in the mix. With a glance over my shoulder to make sure it's still clear, I drop to the ground, lying beside the young man, and look under the couch. She's a brunette, four years old maximum, with a teddy bear clutched in one hand and tears running down her face. Her brother is talking, soothing words, trying to get her to take his hand. But her eyes are locked on me, and she says it again.

"He's a bad man, bad man."

Well, at least Herman Schultz is fully and utterly capable of putting the fear of God into four year old girls.

"Hey, Sally," I said, "it's ok. I'm not a bad guy right now, ok? I'm here to help you and your brother get out of here, away from those guys outside in the hallway, the one who were beating on your door. I'm a friend, ok?"

She shook her head vehemently, and pulled back a little further under the couch. "No...no, Mommy and Daddy said you're a bad man, you'll hurt us."

"Damn it," I almost snarled, I..." Deep breaths, Herman, deep breaths. Ok, so this little girl knows who I am. She sees the brown-and-yellow mask. She sees the Shocker. Alright...

I demagnetize my mask, and pull it off. Now, she's seeing Herman Schultz, brown hair, brown eyes, and not the world renowned safecracker who makes little girls quake in their boots, and damn it, that sentence was Megan's Law creepy...

"Sally? My name's Herman. My friend Aleksei and I, we heard your brother call for help. We're friends, and we're here to keep you and your brother safe." I never had what one could call a soothing voice, but man, I pretended like I was trying to convince the Bookie to give me another few days to pay off that weekend's NFL action. "It's cool, alright?" Behind me, Aleksei was yelling something, but I kept my eyes locked on Sally, trying to add a smile to my face. "Your teddy bear...what's his name?"  
"Ra..Radar," she stuttered.

"Radar. That's a nice name. Sally, I promise, I'm going to get you, Radar, and your brother someplace safe. Someplace where those guys won't be able to get to you. A castle, alright? A castle with good food and someone to keep watch on you and Radar. Does that sound good?" She slowly nodded, and I tried to go for the clincher. "Ok, Sally. All you have to do is take your brother's hand, and we'll get you out of here. I promise."

Slowly, she reached out with her free hand. "That's right, Sally," her brother gently coaxed. "Come on..." He took her hand and started to help her out from under the couch. As I stood up, I magnetized my mask, sealing myself back up as Sally, covered in dust bunnies, climbed out from under the couch. She was still crying slightly, and clung to her brother as we walked towards the door, and the sound of crunching bone.

"It'll be ok," I tried to reassure her. "Aleksei and I are nice men, promise..."

"WHAT THE HELL HERMAN, THIS ISN'T A DAMN PICNIC OUT HERE! MOVE YOUR ASS!"

I groaned at the profanity. "We're coming out, Aleksei!" I turned down to the little boy, who was now staring at the hallway, trembling slightly. I snapped my fingers to get him to look in my direction. "Ok, I need you to pick up your sister and carry her. Just stay behind me and don't stop for anything. We're going down to the lobby and out the front door to our truck. Sally, I want you to hold on to Radar, and keep your eyes closed. Can you do that for me?" She nodded, along with her brother. I found myself patting him on the shoulder. "Alright, follow me." I stepped into the hallway. The way we had come was clear, not a zombie in sight. To our left, Rhino had done a great job of keeping back the horde. Several ghouls lay motionless at his feet, but it didn't dissuade the rest from trying to grab him. "Aleksei, let's beat feet."

He turned his head to look at me, nodding, a ghoul in each hand being kept at arms length. "Go on, I'll meet you at the stai..."  
It would have made a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers proud. A female zombie climbed up on the back of the two ghouls Rhino was holding, and leapt forward like she was going for a diving QB. Rhino caught a glimpse of her just as her hands reached his face, swiping at the thick skin. "OW!" His exclamation rang off the walls, echoing slightly as she landed between his massive arms, fingers grabbing for the only exposed part of his body...

Rhino's response was to step forward, slamming her with his chest. The female staggered back for an instant, ready to spring back forward as soon as she recovered. With a yell, Rhino brought the heads of the two ghouls he was holding inward. The crunch caused me to wince deeply as the skulls of all three impacted with a noise like cracking open a peanut shell. He let go of the ghouls, and both of them, along with the female, dropped to the ground. The rest of the pack surged forward, but with a mighty shove, Aleksei, planted firmly on the carpet, shoved them backwards. "Alright, Herman, let's go, go go!"

I started to go...but I stopped. I got a good look at Aleksei's face as he turned to follow me. Even though he was urging me to move towards the stairs at the far end, I couldn't tear my eyes away from his face. "Herman, come on, you're standing around like..." He stopped in mid-sentence, as it became apparent something wasn't right. "Herman, what's wrong?"

"Aleksei," I said in a quiet voice, not believing what I was witnessing in front of me. "You're bleeding."

X

"Huh?"

"You're cut, Aleksei..."

A small, thin trickle of blood was running down the side of the Rhino's face, starting from high on his cheekbone and curving down towards his chin. It wasn't any worse than a shaving cut. Normally, I wouldn't have even noticed it under the quasi-battlefield conditions we were experiencing.

But...I've never seen Aleksei bleed.

Ever.

"What are you..." he started to say, before the more immediate matter came back to the forefront. A zombie latched onto the back of his arm, and tried sinking her teeth into his flesh. However, the small matter of his bonded polymer armor got in the way, and Aleksei easy elbowed her away. "Come on, Herman, let's get going," he urged, stepping forward in an attempt to move me along. "You lead, I'll watch the back! Let's get these kids out of here!"

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts about the cut. "Alright. Come on, kids. Just stay right behind me and keep moving, alright?" The boy, clutching his sister Sally, nodded. I took the forefront, moving quickly towards the stairs at the far end. Rhino brought up the rear, walking backwards, easily keeping the distance between him and the undead mob that was just now starting to shuffle after us. The kids stayed between us, Sally still snuffling as she held on to her brother and her teddy bear for dear life. I scanned each and every apartment door as we passed, making a visual check to ensure they were closed and not open doorways holding lunging zombies. But we made it to the stairs without any problems. Rhino shut the door behind us as I pointed down the steps. "Ok, down the stairs to the lobby. When we get to the lobby, I need you both to shut your eyes, ok? We'll carry you outside to our car, just promise me you won't look until we're on the street. Can you do promise me?" They both nodded, and together, the four of us started down the stairwell. I led the way, my gauntlets held out, finger on the trigger, swinging wide around each landing before moving down the next set of steps.

We were free and clear all the way down to the fourth landing. As I took the stairs down from four to three, a door banged open below us. We came to a complete stop halfway down the flight of steps as the echo of metal hitting concrete reverberated up the stairwell, soon to be followed by a gaggle of moans. Quickly, I peeked over the banister, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on below us. All the way at the bottom of the stairs, the half-eaten skull of the corpse I had encountered in the lobby shuffled into view.

I pulled back, shaking my head as I told Aleksei, "the corpses from the lobby. They reanimated."

"Crap," he muttered. "Think we can get past them?"

"One second," I responded. They were coming this way, so I had nothing to lose by fully exposing myself by leaning over the banister. The half-eaten skull zombie led the way, with about a dozen of his friends following him. Close quarters, with two kids to protect...and the fact that, somehow, one of those things had drawn blood from a supervillain with near impervious skin. Those odds didn't add up our favor.

"I don't want to risk it," I said, motioning to the kids who stood between us. "They might get in the way."

"Well what do we do then, Herman?"

Going back up wasn't an option, since there was a mob somewhere above us who knew we had taken the stairs and was probably on their way down. Going down wasn't an option, with a second mob coming up. So, when it doubt, take the third option.

"We go sideways. Come on," I said, going for the door to the third floor of the apartment building. "Maybe, if they're clear, we can grab the elevators down to the lobb..."

As I pulled open the door, a loud snarl greeted me. The woman in the sweatsuit pawed at my face and upper chest, her jaws snapping at my neck even as my suit pushed her away. I pushed her away from me, giving me room to cock back my fist. I timed it so, when she lunged back at me, my jab caught her directly in the nose. Her snarls are quickly cut off as my vibration-assisted punch shatters her nose, skull, and though you can't really shatter a brain, I'm not going to argue semantics here. She flew backwards into the hallway from the impact, coming to a rest in a crumpled heap against an apartment door.

"Follow me, guys," I told Sally and her brother, whose name I still hadn't gotten. "We're going to check the elevators out." We all moved into the hallway. I did my best to skirt the fallen body, but I saw Sally's eyes stare at the corpse as we moved past. Better a dead corpse then a live one, though.

The bank of side-by-side elevators sat in the middle of the hallway. Unlike the lobby, there wasn't a trail of blood soaking into the carpet just outside the brass doors. Hopefully, that was a good sign. "Alright, guys, stand back." I ushered the kids and Aleksei to the far side of the hallway, just past the doors. "If any of those things are inside, I'll take care of them."

I had just pushed the button to call the elevators to the fourth floor when Rhino chimed in. "Herman, what if there's more of those things in the lobby?"

"There shouldn't be, Aleksei." My thumbs rested on the triggers of my gauntlets, twin level-one blasts just waiting to be unleashed into the confined space of the elevator. I would have preferred level two's, but I would sacrifice power for accuracy and save a little bit of juice in case of an emergency. "They were all lumbering their way up here. If there are, you grab the kids and I'll blast us out. Got it?"

"Got it."

I found myself trembling a bit. Here I was, actually waiting for a zombie to lunge out at me. All evening, they had taken us by surprise, lunging from an open door, from behind a Hummer, looking at us down a long aisle. This time, though, I was ready for them, and I swore to myself, any zombie in the elevators when the doors slid open wouldn't have time to register me as a possible snack before I unloaded on them...

...

...

...any second now...

...

...I looked at the lights above the elevators as I waited. The up arrow was lit, but the number "1" was still illuminated. I stepped forward and pushed the call button again, before re-readying myself in case the undead poured out of the elevator.

"Herman," Aleksei said after a few moments. "The elevator isn't moving."

"Ah, mother..." I managed to get out before remember there were children present. On reflex, I slap the call button again, cursing under my breath. "You gotta be kidding me," I muttered as the number "1" stayed lit and the sounds of cables and counterweights from behind the door did not reach my ears. "You gotta be kidding me, you gotta be kidding me, you gotta be kidding me. God damn it...what else can..."

Oh, poor word choice, Herman.

At the end of the hallway, the door to the stairwell slowly creaked open. As the four of us looked in that direction, a cold gray hand grasped at the edge of the door, soon joined by several others. They pulled at the door, dragging it open inch by inch. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!"

"Can't you just blast them, mister?" a tiny, scared voice asked from behind me.

"Kid, I'm a quart low right now..." I answered, honesty forgoing reassurance.

Bless Aleksei, because at this point, in the middle of my disbelief, the big guy took charge. He turned, and grabbed the doorknob to the nearest apartment. It refused to budge, however it didn't daunt him, instead causing him to turn to the one across the hallway. That one was locked too, but he kept going. "Herman, find an unlocked apartment! We'll barricade ourselves in and figure a way out!"

"You look, Aleksei, I'll cover the kids!" I looked over my shoulder. They both stared back at me, wide-eyed with terror. "Hey," I tried to reassure them (and myself!), "I told you we'd keep you safe. Just...had to take a little detour, alright?" Sally was apparently all screamed out, but she buried her face in the neck of her older brother, not looking at the horde of ghouls that had forced open the stairwell door. Half-skull was in the lead, loping along, his spine bent so badly, one arm nearly touched the ground as he walked towards us. His white eye contrasted with the red muscle, wet and fresh on what was left of his face.

A loud gasp escaped from the young boy. I stepped in front of him, my gauntlets raised. "Come on...you don't need to see that," I told him. They were still down the hallway, but unless Aleksei could find a door, I'd have to cut loose, and I didn't know if I had enough juice to make it, unless we waded in and went hand-to-hand...not an option, with the two young children under our wing. Why the hell didn't I grab backup power sources? An easy swap, like changing a 9-volt...and it didn't cross my mind until right now, when I needed it most.

When WE needed it most.

"Herman!" Behind me, Aleksei had found an unlocked apartment door. He pulled his head back from looking inside, and waved an arm for us to follow him. "Come on, come on, move!"

I turned, and practically shoved the little boy towards sanctuary. As we got close, Rhino stepped inside, his fists at the ready, making sure nothing attacked us from inside the apartment. As soon as the kids had crossed the threshold, I stole a glance at the advancing horde before stepping inside and slamming the door shut. "Aleksei," I said as I engaged the deadbolt, "barricade. I'll sweep the place."

The red blood was stark against his skin as the big guy gently ushered the kids to the side, before grabbing a nearby bookcase and sliding it against the door with ease. The lights were blazing inside the apartment, every lamp and fixture brightly illuminated, making my job a bit easier. The sound of furniture being crammed against furniture provided the audio accompaniment as I scanned the dwelling. The kitchen was clear, as was the living room and dining rooms. The narrow corridor leading back to the bedrooms gave me momentary pause, but the rooms themselves were empty of bodies, dead or unliving.

"It's clear," I told Aleksei as I walked back into the foyer. He had just finished shoving the dining room table against nearly every other piece of furniture that had been within easy reach of a guy who could bench-press a Toyota Tundra. It was a jury rigged, hastily put-together mix of wood and metal, jammed against the front door. The word "overengineered" came to mind, even though it isn't technically a word. But without any room to get leverage or bring overwhelming force to bear, there was no way the undead horde in the hallway could get inside.

Of course, there also wasn't anyway the four of us could get outside, but at this moment in time, I was happy to trade liberty for security.

Rhino clapped his hands together, and turned to look at me. Again, I couldn't help but stare...

I know I'm making a big deal about Aleksei's small cut. My chosen field of business involves a lot of hand-to-hand combat, explosions, lasers, shrapnel, improvised weapons, and being thrown through shoddily built walls. I tend to end my days bruised and battered, with the occasional small cut and scrape somewhere on my body.

In all the years I've known him, though, Aleksei's never been cut.

I'm not exaggerating. I've watched him slam head first through a wall, I've seen him go toe-to-toe with the Hulk, and I've watched him get a face full of repulsor ray from no less then Iron Man. And each and every time, he's walked away bruised, but never cut. Not tonight, though. One of those thing's claws carved a small nick into Rhino's skin, enough to break the skin and draw blood. Which was impossible. A guy like Wolverine, yeah, I'm willing to bet he could slice open Rhino without any problem, and last I saw, those things weren't walking around with metal-tipped fingers and teeth.

Aleksei saw me staring. He put the back of his hand against his cheek, and pulled it away. Upon seeing the blood against the gray armor, Aleksei stared at me, blinking in confusion. "You were right, Herman."

"Let me see..." He bent down, allowing me to get a good look at his face. The wound wasn't deep, or long. It had punctured his skin just enough to break the capillaries underneath. "Just a scratch, man. Let me go get you a paper towel or something. I guess those thing are stronger then they look."

He shook his head. "They're not that strong, Herman. I can shove them around without breaking a sweat...and they can't bite or tear through my suit. If they were that stronger, then they should have broke into that 7-11 no problem." He was looking down at the blood as I ripped a paper towel from a roll on the kitchen counter. "I guess that explains one thing."

"What's that?"

"What happened to the Wrecker." Aleksei folded up the paper towel, and gently dabbed at the still wet blood. "Those things must have gotten to him and tore him apart even though he was thick-skinned."

"Now there's a sobering thought..." I looked away from Aleksei's face, and found the two children staring at us. They had retreated to a corner, standing there as Rhino had built up the barricade. Now, they were still quivering slightly, Sally standing beside her brother, clutching at his hand as she held her teddy bear with the other arm. I studied them for a second, before turning back to Aleksei. "Hey, Aleksei...can you keep the kids calm for a few minutes? I'm gonna try to figure out a way to get us out of here."

He nodded, wiping at his cheek a few more times. The blood had come away, but the wound was still there, a dark, wet mark on his skin. Balling up the paper towel, he tossed it into a nearby wastebasket before kneeling down on one knee in front of the kids. Now, I've seen Rhino mad, and I've heard him roar...but the big, goofy, childlike smile he put on his face reassured me more than anything else I had seen so far tonight. "Hey, guys," he said. "You're Sally, right? And I never caught your name..."

The young boy nodded. "Mark. I'm Mark."  
"Hey, Mark. You guys can call me Aleksei, ok?"

"But...everyone calls you the Rhino," Mark countered. "I've seen you on TV. You've fought Spider-Man before."

"Yeah, I have...we..." Aleksei looked down at Sally for a second. "...we were playing Cops and Robbers." I watched as Aleksei winked at Mark before continuing. "We were just playing around."

Mark seemed to catch on. "Oh...oh, ok. So you were just playing around?"

"That's right, Mark. Hey, Sally...that's a nice teddy bear. What's his name?"

I wandered away, letting Rhino take charge of keeping the tykes calm as I tried to figure out what our next move was. In the dining room, I moved one of the curtains and peered down onto the street below. The Hummer and our trailer were still parked outside the Walgreen's. It was a stroke of luck in our favor that I hadn't started the engine when Rhino had made his last trip, because that would have been who knows how much wasted gasoline? The rest of the news wasn't so good, however,

During the brief time that Rhino and I had engaged in our rescue attempt, the living dead had come out to play. About twenty ghouls staggered across my field of vision, a mix of young, old, mobile, and limping. As I watched, I felt a cold ball settle into my stomach. The zombies were all moving towards the front of the apartment building, disappearing out of sight into the main lobby. How did they know we were in here? I mean, the zombies already here in the building, those I could understand, given the complete and utter lack of subtlety Aleksei and I had shown in barreling through the hallway. But, the ones from the outside...

The possibilities clicked through my mind. Hive mind? Their moans having a subsonic component? Undeath coming with an automatic subscription to Verizon Wireless? It wasn't a time for theories, though, and I put those thoughts to the side for a moment. The pressing matter was getting the hell out of here. I ran down a mental checklist of our options. The "charging down the hallway option" was out. Not only was I still worried about the wound that zombie inflicted on Rhino, but there simply wasn't enough running room to get a good start. Plus, the kids...I had to take them into account. If Rhino was charging, that made me the last and only line of defense, and my gauntlets weren't up for prolonged firing at the moment.

Fire escape? Not accessible from the windows of this particular apartment.

Vents? Too small for Aleksei, and he wouldn't let himself be left behind.

I found myself walking towards the edge of the dining room, towards the interior wall. Were the walls between apartments solid brick, or wood and drywall? A few taps gave me that answer: wood and drywall. The tumblers were turning in my brain as I heard Aleksei laugh behind me. OK...we can't go out the front door, but we can make a side door. Aleksei could punch a hole no problem, and the two of us could easily make it wide enough for us to pass through. If we're lucky, the zombies would be banging on the front door of this apartment and we could flank them all the way to the stairwell.

Two problems with that plan, however. One, you couldn't count on every single zombie being crowded in front of the apartment. They could be strung out along the hallway, stumbling around with their own unique form of ADD. And there wasn't a guarantee that the stairwell was clear, either. We could open the fire door and be staring at a whole new horde of ghouls coming down from the top floor...and that segued a bit into my second concern. Who knew what was just on the other side of the wall? Hell, someone could have been using the next door apartment as a makeshift morgue for all we knew...

I considered getting a hold of Boomerang, and having him come pick us up. He had his rocket boots, he could fly to the Hummer, pull it over here, and fly us down...but again, that'd leave Aleksei behind, and if Fred ran out of propellant along the way, he'd be a sitting duck, especially if he crashed and couldn't defend himself.

Alright. So if we can't go forward into the hallway, and going sideways isn't the best option, then there was one other way to consider. I ducked down and examined the hardwood floor of the dining room. We were on the third floor. If we wanted do, the two of us could easily smash our way through this floor, and then the ceiling of the apartment below us, and then rinse and repeat down to the first floor, with the two of us handing the kids down between floors. And if something should happen, and we came across a couple of zombies stumbling around? Well, the damn things hadn't learned to jump, grab, and pull themselves up through holes in roofs yet, I was actually willing to wager. One of us stays up above with the kids, the other jumps down and takes care of business. Yeah. Yeah, that was doable. It wasn't the best plan I had ever come up with...but then again, until lately, there hadn't been a pressing needs for my plans to include life expectancy.

There was only one problem...but it was just a matter of changing direction once we were down a floor, I decided as I walked back to the living room. Aleksei was back on his feet, and the two kids, Mark and Sally, looked...less worried. "How we looking, Herman," he asked me as I approached them.

"Well...I have an idea, Aleksei. It's gonna be noisy, and it's gonna be messy. But, we pull it off, and it'll keep our contact with those basta...with those things to a bare minimum."

He nodded. "Is it gonna involve breaking stuff?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Good. I'm good at that."


	15. Spreading the Wealth

Rhino's fist smashed through the first bit of plaster. He pulled back, sending small pieces of white shrapnel through the air, and punched the top of the ceiling a second time, expanding the hole. "Careful, Aleksei," I warned him as he set himself for another blow, "looks like there's a light fixture to your left..."

The punch caught the edge of the setting with two knuckles. It was enough to rip the bronze fixture away from the ceiling. Rhino and I winced even before the chandelier smashed into the floor of the apartment below us. The light bulbs cracked almost instantly, and the glass beads clattered against the hardwood. The crash soon faded away, and as the sound dissipated, I realized I was holding my breath.

"Sorry, Herman," Aleksei said. "I didn't..."

"Don't worry. Come on, let's just get this hole opened up." I grabbed at the edges of the shattered floor with my gloves and started to pull on the planks of wood. On his side, Rhino simply swept a hand along the sides of the hole his attacks had just made. Between the two of us, the hole into the lower apartment was soon big enough for Aleksei to squeeze through. With a nod to my friend, I swung my legs over the edge, and pushed off. I fell for a second or two, before landing in a crouch in the living room of the apartment below us. It had the same layout as the one I had just come from, and probably the same interior decorator from the look of the furniture that I could make out in the dark. Aleksei's face stared down at me as I glanced at the hole, giving him a reassuring nod before heading to the front door. The deadbolt was set, along with the security chair. I moved the small table in the foyer to block the door, just in case, before moving back to the hole. "The security chain's set," I told Aleksei in the apartment above me. One hand reached out and turned on the lamp that sat on an end table. "Give me a minute to check the place out."

I swept the kitchen, living room, and dining room, lighting each room up as I moved. Nothing out of the ordinary. The master bedroom, however, was wide open, and light spilled through the doorway. Moving slowly and silently on the thick carpeting, I carefully made my way down the narrow hallway towards the open door, my back against the wall for safety, one gauntlet at the ready. I didn't hear anything from the room as I got closer. Once I reached the edge of the door, I stuck my head out past the frame, taking a quick peek inside.

The family of four had been laid out on the bed. The two young children were lying at the foot of the bed, and the parents were sitting up against the headboard. All of them were dead, and I mean that in the "shot in the head" sense of the word. The two children had small holes in their foreheads, while the woman's wound was in her temple. The husband still clutched the .38 in his right hand, and the effects of his self-inflicted gunshot were displayed on the headboard and the wallpaper just above the wood.

I closed the door quietly, turning on the hallway light and checking the bathroom (empty) before going back to the hole. Wordlessly, I raised my arms. Rhino was careful to use his long arms to help Sally avoid the worst of the splinters, and I managed to grab her by her hips, and gently set her down on the floor. "Sally, go sit on the couch, ok?" She nodded her assent to my request, and pulled herself onto the couch as it was Mark's turn to climb down through the hole with Rhino's and my assistance. Afterwards, it was Rhino's turn. I stepped back, holding my breath, as my friend, lying on his stomach, slowly slid down through the opening he had bashed in the ceiling. His massive legs dangled slightly as he lowered himself, trying to get as far as he could before gravity took over. The wood cracked as his torso began to put pressure on it, slowly building in volume as he shimmied. I was holding my breath again, an image of Rhino landing on the ground...and crashing through to the apartment below. And probably into the basement.

My visions of Rhino as a cannonball in one of Galileo's experiments were interrupted by a giggle. In the middle of this, Sally, her teddy bear sitting beside her, was laughing, pointing at my friend, his feet kicking as he took great care. "Rhino's Pooh Bear," she proclaimed brightly. "He's stuck in the tree!"

I couldn't help myself. I knew the story she was talking about...and her giggle just was a perfect ray of sunshine in the hell that had been this evening. "You know, Aleksei, I can probably find you some honey in this place."

A growl could be heard. "I will fall on you, Herman."

I laughed, and this got a laugh from Mark as well. "You got it, big guy?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah..." He stopped kicking, and as gently as he could, dropped to the floor. As he impacted, falling about ten feet, the hardwood splintered...but it held. I could hear glass rattling in the kitchen cupboards, and a few books fell off a nearby shelf, but the floor didn't smash under the impact. It creaked slightly as Rhino brought himself back to full height, dusting a few splinters off of his chest. "I like going forward and backward better, Herman, not up and down."

"You're gonna get your wish, Aleksei." I motioned for him to follow me, to the windows facing the street. The street was occupied by the living dead, but not in the numbers I had seen about fifteen minutes ago when I last looked. Most of the zombies were lumbering towards the front door, but the rest were scattered across the block. And only one or two crossed directly between where we currently stood and our Hummer. "Look," I said, pointing out the window. "There ain't that many of them out there right now. We can get to the Hummer and get the hell out of here."

Aleksei, rubbing his chin, peered out the window. "That's an awfully long run we gotta make, Herman. That'll expose the kids."

"Yeah, I know, but you carrying them's the quickest way to get over there. We get there, we throw Mark and Sally in the back seat, and we blow this pop stand." I motioned out the window. "They're starting to fill the streets up, Aleksei, especially since it looks like they know we're in here. If they figure out we're in this apartment, then we might never make it out alive."

After a few seconds, Rhino looked at me with approval. "Ok. If you think it's a good idea, Herman. So, we go down one more floor and climb out a window?"

I shook my head, surprising him with my reaction. "We can't go down one more floor. The lobby's right below us. And I don't want to take those kids through that massacre if we can help it. Plus," I said with another gesture towards the window, "they seem to be going into the lobby."

"Right, right," Aleksei said, getting the gist of the plan. "So, we break in the apartment next door, and then go down a floor, and then out the window?"

Again, my head moved side to side in disagreement. "Nope. No time for that, especially since we don't know what's going on in those other apartments. No, we gotta go now, and we gotta go fast." I reached out, and squeezed his shoulder. "Trust me on this one. Just do what I say and we'll be back in TriBeCa within the hour."

Rhino looked skeptical, but he nodded his assent. "Ok, Herman. What do I gotta do?"

"Just what you always do, big guy..."

X

Over my shoulder, I told Mark, who was riding piggyback. "Just hold on tight, and don't panic."

"Ok, Mister Shocker."

I looked down at my chest. Sally was wrapped tightly in my arms as I held her to me. Her teddy bear, Radar, was sandwiched between the two of us. "Sally, the same goes for you. Just keep a hold of me, and do what I say. Ok?" She nodded once, burying her face in my chest afterwards.

Needless to say, I was nervous. The contact plates in my suit and my vibro-smashers were voluntarily off-line, so I could hold the two kids without fear of anything going off and hurting them at close range. Being without my weapons and my defense made me feel like a fat guy walking naked into a starving lion's den. But someone had to keep a grip on them during this plan, and out of the two of us, I was the only adult here who could do it. Rhino was going to be too busy playing cannonball.

"Close your eyes, kids, and don't open them until I say so," I said to them. "Alright, Aleksei, do it!"

Aleksei was standing in the foyer of the apartment, as far away from the exterior wall of the apartment as he could. The furniture had been moved away. Directly across from him was nothing but bare wall. My friend took a deep breath...and charged.

He couldn't get THAT much speed running through an apartment, but he kept his head down, pushing forward, horn leading the way. The kids and I stayed tucked in a corner as Rhino did his best to go from 0-to-60 in a short distance. When he slammed into the wall, glasses shattered in the kitchen, and I could see the good china falling from the cabinet in the living room. The plaster and drywall were nothing more than dust hanging in the air as Rhino pulled his horn out of the concrete. Where his horn had impacted the wall, there was now a hole to the outside, made wider as Aleksei ripped his head away. Around it, the outer brick wall was cracked. "One more good run, Aleksei, we got it," I called in encouragement. With freedom so damn close, I didn't care who or what heard us. He quickly moved back to the front door, and set himself again. He rolled his large shoulders, squaring them like an offensive lineman with the wall. With a small roar, Aleksei pushed off again. This time, the wall didn't even stop him. And he didn't flinch, blink, or slow down. Driving like pistons, his legs carried him horn-first into the wall, and then right through it. He leapt into the New York night, shoving off like he was a pirate leaping for a hanging rope. Quickly, he fell out of sight as gravity overtook forward momentum. But I knew when he hit the ground from the loud booming noise his feet made slamming into the asphalt. "HERMAN," I heard him bellow at the top of his mighty lungs, "TEN SECONDS, THEN JUMP!"

"Ok, Mark, Sally, I'm gonna start running. You guys take a deep breath, I don't want you inhaling brick dust." Sally's eyes were pinched closed, and I wished for a moment I had that luxury. Mark's arms clutched around my neck, but I still had plenty of room to breathe. "Alright, Herman...six...seven...eight...nine...ten!" I wasn't Aleksei, but I sprinted across the apartment as quickly as I could. The hole was easily big enough for the three of us to barrel through. Much like Aleksei, I pushed off, trying to get as far away from the apartment building as I could while we fell.

A two story fall normally entailed the risk of a broken ankle, which, this evening, right now especially, would have been the kiss of death. My boots, luckily, absorbed most of the impact as we landed on the sidewalk running outside the apartment building. My shins screamed in protest, but having concrete instead of carpet under my feet partially reassured me.

Seeing Aleksei use a Honda Prius like a baseball bat did the rest.

My friend stood in the crater where he had landed. In both hands, he held the front bumper of the small car, and swung in a 180 degree arc, clearing the area as several undead went flying away. "Herman," he yelled as one of the zombies broke its spine slamming against the stone banister of the apartment building, "let's get the hell out of here."

"Hold on, kids." Mark and Sally still hanging off of me, I trotted as quickly as I could after Aleksei. He turned to his left, hurling the Honda at the front of the apartment building. I could make out a sizable concentration of zombies on the stairs before the car slammed on top of them, pinning them, and more importantly, taking them out of the equation in a small collision of steel, glass, and masonry.

Rhino and I had worked together for so long, the next part was old hat. He led the way, keeping a slow but steady pace. His eyes scanned left and right, almost on autopilot. A strong backhand cleared away any undead who got too close, while I was right on his proverbial tail. The part I was worried about most, the exposed run from the apartment building to the Hummer, went as smooth as butter. Not one ghoul came close to laying a hand on myself, Mark, or Sally.

Rhino opened the back door, and peeked his head inside of the vehicle as I put Sally down. "Alright, Herman, it's clear." He bent down, and grabbed Sally. Strong hands put her firmly in the back seat of the vehicle. Behind us, the protesting moans of the undead trapped under the Prius were thankfully muffled. "You guys put on your seatbelts," Aleksei said gently as I let Mark down off my back, "and don't open the door for anything." They nodded, and Mark, after climbing in, helped his sister with her seatbelt as Aleksei firmly closed the door.

"Make sure the trailer's locked, Aleksei, and then we're gone." He nodded, and trotted around to the back of the trailer as I climbed into the driver's seat. Behind me, Mark was fastening his seatbelt, clicking it home. Giving a finger to every single horror movie cliché out there, the engine started on the very first turn, no sputtering, no complaining, just the reassuring hum of a Detroit engine block. "Thank you, God," I murmured in gratitude."

"The trailer's all secure, Herman." The creak of protesting shocks greeted Aleksei as he squeezed his way into the passenger's seat. He had to duck his head slightly, but his door closed without any trouble. "Let's ride."

"We are riding, my man." A few zombies, out of reach, still lunged for the Hummer as I turned it towards the west, and the Hudson River. But if they weren't in front of me, I ignored them, focused solely on finally completing the initial job before our impromptu rescue mission. The Walgreen's and that apartment building faded in the rear view mirror as I shifted gears across Lower Manhattan.

"We're clear, Herman," Aleksei said as he turned his head from the rear-view mirror. "No way those things are gonna catch up."

"Alright. You watch the back, I'll keep an eye on the road." Right now, I wasn't concerned with speed and getting back to the hideout as quickly as possible. Resisting the urge to just jam the accelerator all the way to the floor, I focused on not hitting things with the trailer that was attached to the Hummer. Whatever had drawn all those ghouls to the apartment building, it had apparently cleared the streets for our journey back home. A few solitary ghouls stumbled about, and I had to turn a few times to avoid hitting some that were in the middle of the street, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. I had worried that the streets would be clogged with the living dead, causing me to run them down and drive over their carcasses. But...maybe Osborn was on to something. The dead seemed to clump up wherever the living were, starting with the 7-11 earlier, continuing with the aftermath of the assault on Tombstone's SUV, and then the apartment building. Nobody except for me and Aleksei seemed to be dumb enough to wander the streets of New York City, after all. Who knew what was going on in all the buildings we were driv...

Focus, Herman. Action now, exposition later.

I turned on my comms. "Fred, you out there?"

"I ain't out anywhere, mate," the Australian's voice replied after a few seconds. "I'm sitting on a couch hoping I don't have to come pull your fat out of the fire."

"I never knew you cared, Fred. Don't worry, we're on our way back. We got everything we needed, we just had to take a little detour to find a trailer," I responded.

"Was starting to get a might worried, I admit, but don't assume that means I give a damn," he joked.

"Heads up, we got two kids coming back with us. See if we can scrape up something for them to eat, alright?"

"Two kids? All we need, rugrats running 'round. I'll see if Peter and Anne got anything handy. See you soon," Fred said before clicking off.

"You kids ok?" Aleksei did his best to half-turn in his seat, one arm resting on top, to bring the children into view.

Mark nodded. "We're fine, sir." Next to him, Sally, head bowed, lightly pulled and plucked at Radar's brown fur. "Where are we going? To a rescue station?"

"Not really...Herman has a warehouse. There's a bunch of other people there too. We made it safe so those zombies can't break inside. We're hiding out there until things get better."

"Are there police officers there? My Aunt Vivian was going to look for some cops before..." Mark trailed off for a second. "The adults had locked the front door to the building and said they were going to wait it out, but one of those things got inside somehow, and...Aunt Vivian was going to make a run for it and find some cops, or Army, to come rescue me. But..."

I took my eyes off the road, and stared at Mark in my rear-view mirror. "Sorry about your aunt, kid." Sounded dumb, but there really wasn't anything else to say in that situation. "No, there ain't any cops, but we're there, and there's another guy too like us. We'll keep you safe until...this all blows over."

Mark's features brightened at my words. "Another guy? Like who? Spider-Man? Captain America? Wonder Man?"

Aleksei shook his head. "Nah. Our friend Fred, Boomerang."

"Who?"

I chuckled at Mark's comment. "Just a good friend of ours. Sit back and relax, Mark. We'll be there soon." Mark settled back into the driver's seat. Like his sister, he kept his eyes in the car, not looking outside at the city as we drove past. Lights still burned in most of the buildings, but it was easy to tell that there were less of then tonight then last night. I wasn't a history buff, but a quote from before World War One came into my mind.

'The lights are going out all over Manhattan. We may not see them lit again in our lifetime.'

X

"We did good tonight, Herman." Aleksei's quiet voice held a strong hint of pride as we drove along. "Got the stuff, pulled off a daring rescue. If I had gotten a chance to punch out Wolverine, the night would have been perfect."

"No offense, Aleksei, but the last thing I wanted to see tonight was you and Wolverine going tooth and nail," I responded. "I think the hospitals aren't putting stab wounds high on the triage list at the moment." My eyes went to the white trailer behind us. "Yeah, though...yeah. We pulled a good job off tonight, even if things didn't go smoothly. We got what we needed, we got the way to transport it, and we're all still in one piece. That's win-win to me."

"The rescue was what did it for me," Rhino replied. Now, pride had given way to...a look of satisfaction on my friend's face. As best he could, he was leaning back in the front seat, his legs jammed against the dashboard, but a small smile etched on his face. "I mean..." After a few seconds, it was the second time in the evening he said something that shocked me. "...I think I get the whole hero thing now."

Somehow, I managed to keep myself from steering up onto the sidewalk at the statement. "Really," I said in a deadpan manner once I was sure the Hummer wasn't going to swerve towards the buildings lining the street.

"Well...yeah. I mean...you see..." Aleksei struggled for the words. "It was like the 7-11 last night," he decided to say. "Helping the helpless. Using my suit to do something other than break down walls and...other jobs," he said with a quick glance at the kids in the back. "It wasn't...it didn't feel as goody two-shoes as I thought it'd be. And then tonight, we got all this stuff, we stopped Tombstone from probably going on an eating spree, and we rescued these two kids. It feels good, Herman. Don't get me wrong," he quickly added, "I still like hitting things, but...I don't know. Maybe there's something to being a good guy after all. It's like getting drunk on a Friday night and then you and I going out and rescuing a kitten out of a tree or something." He prompted me, asking "did you feel that way, Herman?"

"Yeah...I won't lie, I did after we did the 7-11 thing. But...I don't know, Aleksei. Don't go signing up for the Avengers just yet. Part of this is us being...somewhat altruistic, but we're also watching out for our own butts. Just..."

He was hitting a nerve. I know I'd been talking back and forth over the last seventy-seven thousand, five-hundred, sixty-six words about me, a long time criminal, going forth and doing good deeds. Altruism, some sense of a moral code, spiting Norman Osborn, outright stupidity, merging "good works" with "actions taken to cover my own ass," the mental image of Stilt-Man getting a kitten out of a tree...I've covered them all. But here's my longtime partner-in-crime, putting it in simple terms. I'm still getting to blast things with my vibro-smashers, make plans that involve people not dying, and getting to do these things with people I consider my friends. And, all the while, keeping my little corner of the world safe for humanity.

Huh.

I wanted to continue this conversation, but Rhino ended it by pointed out the front window. "Herman," he warned me in a low voice, "the road's blocked." I saw it too, and my foot found the brake pedal as I slowed the Hummer down as we approached the intersection. Blocking the way east, two olive Hummers, bright spotlights shining in opposite directions to the north and south, were parked nose-to-nose. Behind them, I could see several forms moving, too quickly to be the undead. But it was the three United States Army soldiers in front of them, as we approached, that had my immediate attention. The two on the edges of the little group held M-16 assault rifles, barrels pointed at the sky. The one in the middle has his rifle slung over his shoulder, staring up at us from a clipboard in his hands as we looked back at him. He leaned forward, as if trying to believe what he was seeing, before suddenly motioning with his hand.

In an instant, the two soldiers were pointing their assault weapons at our Hummer. And on top of the military Humvees, the .50 Browning machine guns turned to face us, the long barrels lowered by the gunners as they took aim at us.

"Alright, Shocker!" I heard the soldier in the middle yell. "Turn off your engine, and the two of you, put your hands where I can see them! You have ten seconds to comply!"

Oh, crap.

"Let's be cool, Herman." Aleksei said this as he lifted his left hand, holding it up against the windshield of our jet black Hummer. His right hand held down a switch on his door, and after the window lowered, he stuck his right arm out the opening, high into the air, his gaze never wavering once from the high-powered weaponry pointed in his direction.

"I'm ice cold, big guy." My left hand was already out the window on my side, as I, carefully and slowly reached down and shut off the Hummer's engine. The ticks of the cooling engine were the only sound as my friend and I warily eyed the soldiers.

"Mister Rhino, what's happening?"

"Just...be quiet, Mark, and don't make any sudden moves," Aleksei advised, not turning away from the front. The soldier in the middle motioned to the two flanking him, and they began to walk towards our vehicle. The riflemen kept their sights on the two of us as they split, one heading towards each side of the Hummer...one for each of us, and didn't I feel loved and special? My very own US infantryman with his finger on the trigger. The soldier with the clipboard tucked it under his arm, and walked with my infantryman towards the driver's side door. On the other side, the infantryman was up on the sidewalk, his back against the stone wall of the building there, his rifle aimed directly at the head of the Rhino. My friend didn't look like he was paying attention to him, though. He had first-hand knowledge what a 5.56 mm round would do to his armor; absolutely nothing. But a round fired from a .50 was a whole different issue.

My complete attention was on the soldier who was now standing about ten feet away from the driver's side door. My hand was straight up in the air, the weapon pointed well away from him to avoid any miscommunications. If it had just been me driving the Hummer, I wouldn't have been too concerned. One good blast to take out the soldier with the M-16, and I wouldn't even have to connect dead center to knock his aim off, another to put the clipboard soldier down, and then I'd be off.

If it wasn't for those pesky kids...well, mainly, if it wasn't for the .50 cals...

"Evening, Shocker." The soldier spoke with a New Jersey accent, northern end of the state. "Should have known you'd be out and about tonight. Pulling off another one of your daring rescues?"

It was his sarcasm that got to me. As a second-rate supervillain in the eyes of many, I used and was abused by sarcasm on a near-daily basis. Just one encounter with Spider-Man filled my sarcasm quota for weeks. Hell, walking, in costume, past a New Yorker usually invoked a smart comment. The soldier included the usual snark that went with a question directed towards me.

So, what other answer would I give?

"Yeah," I said, being honest. "If you look in the back seat, you'll see."

The guy blinked at my answer. I didn't expect him to actually do it, but after nodding to his soldier, the clipboard-holding soldier walked towards the rear-driver's side door. The soldier he left behind kept his rifle pointed at me, and I kept my weapon pointed at the sky. My eyes flickered to the rear-view mirror, where the clipboard soldier was peering through the window. I couldn't see her, but I could imagine Sally still playing with her teddy bear, not even paying attention to the man in the Kevlar helmet leaning in to stare at her. But hey, at least he wasn't pawing at the glass, trying to eat her.

"Huh," I heard him say. "You're being serious." He stepped away, coming back into my direct view. "Alright, guys, barrels to the sky. We got kids in here, so watch your shots in case those bastards show up!" The soldiers each stepped back, pointing their rifles away from the heads of myself and Aleksei, but more importantly, whoever was behind the .50 cals secured them, as the long barrels were now aimed at the night sky as opposed to the Hummer. "You guys can put your hands down. Just keep it cool and civil, alright?"

"Thanks, man," I murmured to the soldier as I lowered my arm.

"No problem," he answered, the sarcasm mostly gone from his voice. "Sergeant Rodney Wallace, 10th Mountain Division," he said with a firm nod.

"10th Mountain?" That was Rhino's voice, speaking from across the cabin. "That's Fort Drum. What the hell are you guys doing all the way downstate?"

"We were rotating back from Iraq through Delaware when Osborn ordered us up here last night," Sergeant Wallace replied. "We put our feet on the ground this morning and have been going ever since."

"Christ," I said. To come back from the sandbox, right into the crucible that had to be a zombie-infested New York City had to be one of the furthest damn things from pleasant possible. "How are you guys holding up?"

Wallace's response was an exasperated chuckle. "Hell, I'd rather be back helping the Brits in Basra. At least the insurgents there have the decency to keel over when shot. What about you guys? Hoping to get on the evening news again?"

"Um...not exactly..." Honesty had, surprisingly, worked before. Might as well see if it keeps working. "We went on a shopping trip, Sergeant. We got a whole bunch of people holed up back in my hideout, and if we're gonna weather this storm, we needed food and medicine."

"Huh. You know, Shocker, that's looting. And if you're sitting in a building somewhere, you're also violating Osborn's Order," Wallace said in an easy tone that I easily recognized and related to.

Smirking under my mask, I casually responded. "We left them a credit card. It ain't our fault the clerks didn't show up to work. As for Osborn's Order..." Carefully, I shrugged, using my hands for emphasis. "...I never was a park going guy. Far as I'm concerned, Central Park can come to me."

That drew a smile from the Sergeant. "Hell, I'm right there with you. I'd rather be at my folks' beach house with the rest of my family. The damn thing's on stilts, pull up the ladder and we'd be fine as long as we had food." He looked to the east, at the soldiers working behind the parked Humvees. "Instead, I'm on sweep-and-clean duty in the middle of New York City. It's a damn miracle I haven't lost anyone in my squad yet."

Without having to divert my eyes to stare at aimed weapons, I looked in that direction. The soldiers, I could see, were dragging dead bodies towards a central pile being built in the middle of the street. It had to be more than fifty corpses being set on top of one another, and more were being dragged out from the block's building. "Jesus," I breathed as I watched two soldiers swing a body on top of the pile. "Are you guys going on bug hunts?"

"Hell, no. What we're doing is sweeping buildings looking for civilians. Any place where someone might be holed up, we gotta go in and grab them to take them up to Central Park." Wallace looked up at the building his men were currently exiting. "So far, nothing. Not a single damn civilian alive in three square blocks. This thing spread fast, and that's down here where practically no one freakin' lives."

"Sergeant, I live down here, and I agree," I told him. "No one?"

"No one. But we gotta go floor-by-floor. It's a damn waste of time, but we got our orders. And to make things worse, any of those zombies we kill, we gotta burn." With a thumb, he gestured to the growing pile. "Supposedly, it's to stop the spread of disease...not whatever's bringing them back, but chlorea and stuff like that. But...it takes time and manpower. And right now, I'm low on both."

"Wait...burning the corpses? Who the hell said that?" I knew the answered before the Sergeant could get it out. Shaking my head, I spat. "Osborn. Damn it, what the hell is Norman Osborn thinking? If anything, you guys should be up at Central Park, not out on some stupid search-and-destroy mission where you gotta burn the bodies."

"Shocker, just between you and me..."

"Contact!" Behind Wallace, the infantryman was taking aim. A hobo was staggering across the sidewalk from the south, turning his body as he walked. As he closed, the soldier pulled the trigger once, and his weapon stuttered three times in rapid succession. The back of the zombie's head exploded like an overripe watermelon, and the hobo fell to the ground. "Cover," the soldier yelled. From the north, the soldier who had originally covered Rhino stepped forward as the first soldier ran up and grabbed the collar of the fallen corpse. We watched as the second soldier kept watch while the first soldier pulled the corpse towards the Humvees and the pile beyond.

"...between you and me, I'd be getting people out of the city and into the country. Keep the zombies in the city and let the damn things rot. Every building's a damn death trap," Wallace told me with fire in his voice. "But I got my orders. Search, destroy, impress, and burn."

Here was a guy just doing his job. Forgive me if I get a little strawman for a moment, but guys armed with nothing but M-16's, body armor, and a couple of reinforced vehicles...well, they had just as much brass ones as Rhino and I. Especially if they were going building-by-building and clearing every single damn room. Hell, just going over to Iraq for a couple of years...more respect in my eyes then Iron Man or the Sentry, I'll tell you that much.

"Well, I got some bad news for you, Sergeant. A couple of blocks up the way we're coming form, there's an entire building full of zombies. We just pulled those two kids out of harm's way when a bunch of them tried to break in to their apartment. There's a Prius blocking the front door, but if you guys go up that way, there were still a bunch on the street. They might be coming this way." I sighed, and spread my hands. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."

Wallace shook his head in response, giving a dark chuckle. "Christ...well, you got those two kids out, that's the important thing. That's more success than a lot of us are seeing right now."

"Sergeant...you ain't gonna take the kids, are you," Rhino's gravelly voice asked. "You said any civilians you found, you were gonna take up to Central Park..."

Oh, great, now there was a dilemma I hadn't thought of. The soldiers...well, they had the guns. They could serve and protect these kids, and this Wallace guy had a good head on his shoulders. But, Central Park. Which would be crowded, and run by the government, and Norman Osborn was showing himself to be a worse leader then Jimmy Carter. And these kids...who knew where their parents were? Not that I was a parental figure...nor was Rhino...and definitely not Fred...but there were adults in my warehouse. And...I had rescued these kids. Me. My responsibility.

Luckily, after a few seconds, Wallace shook his head. "I didn't see you guys. You got a better track record at rescues then we do. You got, what, 3 people out of that 7-11?"

I laughed, wearily throwing my head back. "Man, did everyone see that video on ABC?"

"ABC? Shocker, the damn thing's on Youtube," Wallace replied. "The news stopped running in this morning, but the Internet picked it up." He leaned to the side, smiling directly at Aleksei. "They even did an edited version when you shot that news copter a look. They call it 'Dramatic Rhino.'"

"Sergeant, we're ready to light it up!" One of the soldiers sitting behind a .50 cal waved at their leader. "Just give your word."

"Hold up! Move those Humvees, and let these guys through before we throw the match!" Almost instantly, the engines on the vehicles roared to life, and they swung to the side, giving us plenty of room to carefully get the Hummer and trailer through. Hey, when given an order, these Army guys don't screw around. Wallace motioned with his hands towards us. "Head on through, guys, and get the hell out of here."

I felt like I owed them something. "Sergeant, I don't know if it can help, but the trailer back here belonged to Tombstone, the crime boss. There's a whole bunch of weapons in the back. Shotguns, assault rifles, submachine guns, the works. I really can't spare the medicine and food, but if you need guns and ammo, you guys are more than welcome to it."

Wallace's eyes lit up. "Hell yeah, Shocker, we could use that stuff. You got any shotguns back there?"

"Couple crates of them, along with boxes of shells. I don't know if Tombstone was getting out of the city or prepping for a war, but he stacked enough firepower to fight one. Anything you guys want, take. I'll write it off as a toll for the gate," I joked.

"Move it forward. Park next to the pile," Wallace said, "and we'll offload it." The Hummer's engine turned back over smoothly, and I maneuvered the SUV and trailer through the opening the Humvees had made. A soldier guided me, motioning me forward. I kept my focus on the road, trying to avoid running any infantrymen over, but also trying not to stare at the pile of corpses that had been stacked on one side of the block. The bodies had been separated into three different groups, each one a small pyramid. Soldiers were soaking the bottoms of the piles with gasoline, it looked like as we drove past.

"Oh," I heard a tiny voice squeak from the back, as Mark looked out the window at the dead people.

"Don't look, kid," Rhino said, a bit too late.

The soldier didn't call for a halt until we were well past the stacks, for which I was grateful. Staring out the side window at a pile of dead bodies waiting to be immolated was not my idea of a good time right now. "Alright," I heard Wallace bellow from behind the trailer as only an Army Sergeant could, "I want that trailer open! I want those shotguns, the shells, and all the 5.56 ammo we can carry. And do NOT touch the food, medicine, or anything else that's back there, it's private property!"

"That was a good idea, Herman." Rhino was watching in his rear-view mirror as the soldiers unlocked the trailer. "We ain't gonna use those guns. Might as well give them to someone who can."

"Yeah...let's just hope they don't ask questions about the other stuff back there."

"What? The medicine?"

"No. The artwork and money."

Rhino looked confused a second, but then nodded. "Oh. Well, hell, that's stuff isn't ours. It was there when we showed up."

My laugh was almost the very definition of 'scoffing.' "Yeah, and how many times has a judge bought THAT excuse, Aleksei..."

Surrounded by soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division, Aleksei, Mark, Sally, and myself patiently waited as they unloaded the weapons and ammunition. Aleksei was right. Aside from the energy weapons, there wasn't anything back there I would have found a use for besides bartering. I wasn't a gun person, and knew of very few supervillains who were. The soldiers could definitely put them to much better use then I ever could.

After a few minutes, the trailer door slammed shut. Sergeant Wallace appeared by the driver's side door, smiling as he nodded to me. "Those shotguns are going to be a huge help, Shocker. It's a damn good thing we ran into each other."

"You guys can get more out of them than I could," I told him.

"Hell, yeah. They're better for room clearing against these things, since they don't shoot back. With what you gave us, we can outfit a couple of units and have plenty of ammo left over. Looks like you didn't make out too badly yourself," he said, all but winking at me. "You're pretty set money wise for a while."

"Right now, the money ain't important." Did I just say that? Yeah, I did, and it was true, but hearing the words come out of my mouth still gave me pause for a second. "Getting home without getting my ass bitten off, that's priority number one."

"Right, right. Well don't let me keep you." Wallace slapped the side of the Hummer, and motioned me forward. "Get out of here, and stay safe, Shocker."

"You too, Sergeant." The Hummer pulled away, finally back on our trip home. Behind us, I could see the Sergeant grabbing a road flare, the harsh pink glow visible for a moment before he tossed it into the nearest pile of corpses. By the time I crossed over to the next block, I could see the ring of fire spreading around the bottom layer, dozens of New York's citizens becoming fuel for a funeral pyre.


	16. Enter the Alliterative

"Last of it, Herman." Rhino stretched his arms above his head, and I pulled the large box through the grate and onto the floor of the warehouse. It landed with a bit of a crash, the metallic contents inside shifting at the impact.

"Christ, you guys didn't mess around," Boomerang said, holding two crates of bottled water. "We got enough stuff to last us until Gabriel blows that final trumpet."

"Nice image, Fred," I groused as I took one of the crates from him.

"Picked it on purpose, Herman. Dead rising from the graves? Judgment Day might come by the end of this week." Rhino climbed out of the hole, closing the grate behind him with a loud squeal, before grabbing the box. The three of us brought the last of the goods inside, heading towards the makeshift pile just beside the kitchen area.

After leaving Sergeant Wallace, the ride back had been smooth. A few ghouls were visible on the West Side Highway, but the warehouse district, as least from what I could see in the darkness, was zombie free. Driving around to the storm drain, the problem of backing the trailer into the tunnel was solved by a simple and proper application of overwhelming force, namely Rhino taking a hold of the trailer and dragging it down the tunnel, breaking no more of a sweat then if he was pushing a wheelbarrow. The Hummer was parked right behind the storm drain, its grille directly against the bars to make sure it couldn't be pushed open. Ashley and Robert immediately took the kids into their custody as Rhino, Boomerang and I began to unload the trailer. I kept Fred up top so he couldn't see the booty that was tucked into the back of the trailer. Not out of greed, but...money made Fred do stupid things. I knew he had a firm grasp on what was going on, but adding bags of money and a suitcase full of gold bars to the mix...it'd hinder more than help, I was sure of it.

Mark and Sally were already digging into some sandwiches when we brought the last of the stuff over. "Alright, everyone," I called out. "We're back, we're in one piece, and we got a whole bunch of stuff. If you ain't busy, we could use a hand sorting it all. Aleksei, can you get Peter and Anne to handle the foodstuffs? Ashley, we grabbed a whole bunch of shampoo, soap...and yeah," I said in response to her look, "your special request is in that brown paper bag. You get to handle the toiletries for now, ok? And Robert, me and you, let's try to split up the rest. We'll start with the medicine."

I looked up at Aleksei, catching him in mid-yawn. "You ok, big guy?"

He shook his head. "Just tired. We did a lot of walking and running today, Herman. I'm feeling beat. Not just physically tired, but..." In a moment of self-awareness, Aleksei smiled at me. "My brain feels drained, too."

"We had a long day, man, between welding, lifting, and rescuing. You did most of the heavy lifting, Aleksei." I studied the stuff laid out on the table in front of us for a second, before waving a hand at him. "It's 1 am. Go grab some sleep. I can finish it up here."

He shook his head. "I'm fine, Herman."

"I'm sure you are, but really, if you're feeling tired...you got the constitution of an ox on steroids sucking on a ginseng shake. Your body must really be running on empty if you of all people are about to crash. It's ok," I told him before he could speak, "we're almost done here anyway. Get some shuteye, Aleksei."

"Ok, Herman." He turned away from the pile, and lumbered towards the reinforced futon. I watched the big guy move away, hoping he felt alright. Between cleaning out the drug store, charging the hallway to rescue Mark and Sally, and breaking through the wall to get us out of the apartment building, not to mention the moving of all the supplies, plus being cramped in the front of the Hummer for a while...he had endurance, but mentally, that had to wear on anyone, even a bulldozer like Aleksei.

Myself? I was just starting to feel tired, at the edges of my vision. The strong coffee was keeping it at bay, though. Black, no cream, no sugar, just the way I liked it when I was spending a late night at my workbench, working on my gloves or my armor. I felt sore, but not tired. Of course, once the caffeine wore off, I would probably end up falling asleep where I was standing, but for now, the strong, bitter blend was just the eye-opener I needed.

"Aleksei's going to sleep?" Robert, his coffee mug willed with coffee and sugar, came up beside me. "I'm surprised you're still on your feet, Herman."

I shrugged, holding up my mug. "I'm used to late nights."

"Yeah, I guess you are...I mean," Robert nervously backtracked, "not that I...you know what I'm saying, right?"

"I know," I told him with a smile. "How's everything else?"

"Pretty well stocked," Robert replied. "I'm thinking, if we don't eat too much, two weeks, maybe three if we're careful." He shook his head after sipping at his brew. "I'm hoping this all blows over by then, but...if it doesn't, we're prepared."

"How are Mark and Sally?"

"Sleeping. They ate dinner, and then collapsed. I hope you don't mind, but I put them in your bed...it was the only one open at the time. I can lay down an air mattress later, but for now..."

"Eh. I can crash on a futon. Let them get some sleep."

"Ok. Is this the last of it," he asked, nodding with his head towards the stuff on the table. Containers of batteries of all sizes, boxes of clock radios, several remote controlled toys, it was an eclectic mix of electronics.

"Yeah. I'll get it over to my workbench in a few minutes."

Robert eyed the collection. "Ok, the batteries I can understand, but the other stuff...this is what you use to build your gloves," the construction manager asked.

"Not quite. It's what I use to patch them." I pointed to one of the boxes, which contained a remote controlled racing car based off a hit children's movie a few summers ago. "I use stuff like that as a stop-gap, until I can get better equipment. I'm pretty set for now, but in case of an emergency, the wiring and processors...I can jury-rig them in."

"You're kidding me. Where the hell did you get your engineering degree from, Herman? I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know enough to say that it's pretty damn impressive..."

I shrugged. "Self-taught. Some high school Vo-Tech, but everything else I picked up by myself."

Robert shook his head in amazement. "Well, it's a shame you didn't go legit, Shocker. Lord knows what kind of career you could have had as an electrical engineer, if you built your gloves by yourself. Probably could have wired the new Trade Center by yourself, save me a fortune on contractors."

I had heard it before. Herman, you're so smart, you should have a real job. You're brilliant, General Electric would snap you up in a heartbeat. Points to Robert, though, coming off as non-judgmental.

"Eh...I knew from a young age the straight and narrow wasn't my path, Robert," I answered firmly. "I complain...but I can't complain. Sitting behind a desk or running wires through ductwork...just wasn't meant for me. Maybe it meant late nights, living on Raman and Mountain Dew, and getting my face punched in every now and again. But I set my own hours, only have to work a few days a month, and no one can say my life ain't boring. Especially the past few days."

He sighed, a weary smile on his face. "The Catholic in me wants to lecture you on your life choice, Herman. But the pragmatist will just thank you again for your hospitality, and ask if you want a hand moving this stuff to your workbench."

"Nah, I got it." I started to gather up the items, pulling them towards the end of the table. "Tell you what, Robert. Aleksei and I were having a conversation earlier along those lines. Tomorrow, when we get bored of watching TV, we'll talk some more."

Robert cocked his head to the side, studying me. "Herman, I don't want to force you to talk. I'm not here to play therapist, or show you the error of your ways."

"Ain't that, Robert. Just figured...it'd be nice to have someone to talk to along with Rhino. Big guy's my friend...but he ain't much for conversation, you know?"

"Um...excuse me, Herman?"

I knew the accent. I just hadn't heard it spoken in English...with English? And can an accent be spoken? Behind Robert and I, Peter, the baker friend of Aleksei's, stood, hands clasped in front of his chest. He had a worried look on his face, and stared at me with wide eyes.

"Hey, Peter," I said. "Is everything ok?"

"Is...my wife, Anne." He motioned towards the kitchen over his shoulder. His wife sat in one of the chairs around the dining table, chin in her hand as she appeared to be taking a nap. "When you come back with Aleksei from the outside...her medicine. Not there."

"Medicine?" I looked over at Robert, who had stocked the medicine we brought back, as I asked, "I don't think we forgot anything. What kind of medicine?"

Peter put his arm out. Just above the inside of his elbow, he tapped the skin. "Insulin."

Oh, crap. My hand went to my forehead, slapping it lightly. "Oh, damn it, Peter! I'm sorry...yeah, it was on the list. I totally forgot to grab it in everything. I'm sorry, man." I glanced over at Anne. "Is she ok?"

"She ok for tonight and tomorrow morning. After...not so well."

Damn it. I remember thinking to myself to grab the insulin from the refrigerator in the back of the pharmacy while Rhino grabbed the pills, but when Aleksei couldn't read the long words, I took over...and completely forgot about the insulin. Damn it, Herman. Get a trailer, save two kids, forget the insulin. Nice job, hero.

Good news, though, this time we had the Hummer, and could take it out without leaving those left in the warehouse without a ride. If we went back out now, before it got light...

"Ok, Peter. We'll go get some insulin," I told him.

The baker's face broke in a smile, and he put out his hand. "Thank you, Herman," he said, giving me a firm shake with his calloused hand.

"Don't mention it. It's my fault for forgetting the insulin in the first place." I let go of Peter's hand, and he went back towards the dining table where his wife napped. "Damn it," I muttered once he was out of earshot. "Damn it, I knew...it went too smooth. That whole little trip out went too smooth. I was going to mess something up, I just..." I shook my head at Robert in frustration. "It was on the list, too. Just skipped right out in my mind."

"Hey, don't knock yourself." Robert swept his arm to encompass the warehouse. "You got a lot of stuff and rescued two children. It happens, Herman. And you can fix it, right?"

"Yeah, yeah...we can hop in the Hummer and go back...wait. No, crap," I cursed. "That block's crawling with those things still, I'm willing to bet. Damn it."

"Ok, find another drug store. You got the Hummer, like you said. You're not packing a shopping list this time out. Smash and grab, Herman...you're good at those, right," Robert teased. "Just keep your eyes open, in, out, you're back here. No problems."

I managed a small chuckle. "I said that last time Aleksei and I went out, and looked how that ended up. Alright, the longer I spend here bitching, the less darkness we have to work with. Let me grab Aleksei and we'll get right out there."

I had just started heading towards the living area when I heard the snoring. Aleksei's broad back was towards me as he slept on the bed, face towards the wall. He still had his armor on. I didn't know whether he had made a conscious effort to keep it on, like last night, in case of emergency, or if he had just conked right out the second he got near the futon. On the couch, across from the two televisions, one showing the government feed and the other still showing the pirate signal from Versus, Boomerang was sprawled out, one arm flung across the chest, his other dangling towards the floor, his mouth wide open as he slept. The chairs were claimed by Ashley and Ernesto, both of them using the armrests for pillows. Aside from myself, Ernesto, and Peter, who was sitting next to Anne as he held her hand, the only other person awake was Bobby. I approached where he was sitting, his head hunched over the keyboard. "How's it going, Bobby," I asked him as I grabbed my vibro-smashers from their charging station.

"I've sucked down enough Mountain Dew to kill a man in his late sixties. So, you know, it's a typical night for me," he joked. Dark circles were forming under his eyes, but his fingers tapped away at the keyboard even as he looked in my direction. He glanced at my gloves as I slid them over my hands. "You heading back out?"

"Yeah. I forgot to grab some insulin for Anne, and I want to get it before the sun comes up. I got the Hummer downstairs. Shouldn't take very long." As my gauntlets ran through their initialization process, I looked at the monitor. "What are you looking at?"

"YouTube," Bobby replied, tapping at the screen with a finger. "A lot of people are posting videos about what's going on. Some people are calling for help, and some are talking about how this is all some kind of government conspiracy. But occasionally...this one I'm watching now. This girl from Vermont was trapped in her house, but her family showed up and rescued her. And this one," Bobby said, opening up a new window. "This guy, Max, from Israel, he's showing how you can turn a shovel into a zombie killing weapon."

"Wow. That's pretty impressive," I said as I watched the video of a middle-aged guy shearing down the spade-end of a garden shovel. "I'm surprised the government hasn't cracked on this kind of stuff yet."

"Can't stop the signal, Herman," Bobby replied with a hint of pride in his voice. "They've tried, but there's ways around it. Just have to know where to look."

"How do you know where to look, Bobby? This part of your audio/video classes?"

"Nah. Bit Torrent. I usually download the latest 'Doctor Who' episodes right after they air in England. I got a crash course in proxies and spoof IP's." He smirked at me. "Found some neat videos, too. You know a guy named Batroc?"

"Yeah...Batroc the Leaper. Dumb name, bad ass fighter. Savate, that French kickboxing martial art. I've seen him go toe-to-toe with Captain America and hold his own. Why?"

"Well, check this out." Bobby clicked open a new YouTube window, and ran a search. I couldn't make out what he typed, but after a few seconds, he tapped the screen. "Watch this."

The video was taken from a camera phone, the screen shaking like it was the latest "Bourne" movie. And screaming. A lot of screaming. The shot itself was taken from behind a barred window, thick metal protecting it from being broken. Beyond the window was a cobblestone street, narrow and winding. Five zombies lurched down the street, heading for a corner where two walls came together. In the corner, a young girl, no more than Sally's age, screamed her head off. She had her arms over her head, trying to push back into the corner, as far away from the ghouls as possible. They closed the distance fast, not once wavering...

A purple-and-gold blur leaped into the shot. A leg extended in mid-air, and the creature at the back of the pack crumpled to the ground as a foot slammed into its eggshell thin temple.

"NON CELUI-CI, CREATURES VILES!"

I didn't understand French, but I knew the handlebar-mustached figure had to be one pissed off frog. I had never worked with Batroc, but he was on the list of "people with stupid names who will kick your ass" that I keep in my head. Like a shot, two more zombies went down as Batroc stepped between them, and rocketed elbows into their temples. "Jesus," I proclaimed at they dropped to the cobblestones. In the time it took me to blaspheme, Batroc had one more ghoul out for the count, an elbow strike to its nose that probably drove bone fragments into its brain, like flechettes, to deactivate it.

The last ghoul, finally, figured out what was happening. It turned away from the girl...just at Batroc lashed out with his foot, catching the zombie dead in the jaw. It slammed into the wall hard enough to kill it, leaving a trail of blood and brain as it slid down the wall.

The bastard wasn't even panting as he stepped over the ghouls. Five down in eight seconds, according to the video. All with his hands and feet. He crouched down, and extended one hand towards the cowering little girl.

"Venez, enfang. Je vous prendrai a la maison."

The girl slowly extended her hand, with Batroc, mercenary, fighter-for-hire, took in his yellow glove. As he stood up, the Frenchman looked directly at the person holding the camera phone, a harsh glare on his face.

"Dissimulation derriere l'acier tandis qu'un enfant est mis en danger. Vous n'etes aucnu fils de la France."

"Damn," I said as the video ended with Batroc and the child walking away. "I'm glad I never tangled with that guy..." My gloves beeped, signaling the end of their powering-on process and bringing me back to reality. "I need something from you though, Bobby."

"Sure!" Fingers danced over the keys as he opened up a new browser window. "What's up?"

"The Walgreen's Aleksei and I went to earlier isn't an option anymore. Find me the next closest one," I asked him. "And make sure it has an on-site pharmacy."

"Oh, no problem." A few moments later, a map of Lower Manhattan appeared on the screen, several pink balloons pointing to various locations spread across the region. "Alright, this is the one you hit up earlier...and this one doesn't have a pharmacy...so that would make it this one. Broad Street," he said as he tapped the screen. "That's over in the Financial District."

"I know that one...yeah," I said. It was a smaller Walgreen's on the first floor of one of those hedge fund firms. I had passed by it a bunch of times, and I clearly remembered the red neon Rx sign in the windows. Hey, those hedge fund managers didn't have time to waste getting their ulcer medication refilled. "Ok, Bobby, if anything happens while I'm gone, wake Fred and Aleksei up. But I should be back in an hour, 90 minutes tops."

"Wait, what?" He spun in his chair as I started to walk away. "You're not taking Aleksei with you?"

"He needs some sleep. Trust me, when the big guy crashes out like he did, it's his body's way of telling him to slow down. Besides, it'll be quicker with just me. This is a stealth run, minimum exposure, no heavy lifting required." I pulled my mask over my head as I passed through the living room, past the snoozing Boomerang. Behind me, Rhino snorted, shifting slightly as the futon creaked under his weight. If he knew I was going out without him, he'd kill me. Not literally, but I knew, for a few seconds, his anger would probably make me fear for my life. But the big guy needed his rest. And I was still pretty good to go. The events of earlier in the evening had scared me right. No joking around, no getting cocky, and always, always, always checking my six. I knew where the drug store was, I knew how to get there from here, and I had a Hummer to handle the trip this time instead of having to walk. Get in, grab the insulin, get out, and I could be back home before Aleksei (or Fred) woke up.

Simple.

X

"Come to daddy," I said as I carefully removed the bottles of insulin from the refrigerator. The illumination from inside the fridge was much brighter then the dim emergency lighting coming from the ceiling, but the walls of the pharmacy hid most of it. In all, I now had eight containers of insulin, tucked safely into the reinforced pouches of my suit, which would hopefully be more than enough to last Anne for however long we stayed in the warehouse.

The gloom settled back in as I closed the door to the fridge. Carefully, I stepped over the body of the dead pharmacist, blood pooling from his noise and ears from my blast, and exited back into the drug store proper. Weaving my way past two fallen zombies, I made it out of the Walgreen's without any problems whatsoever. The Hummer waited for me just outside the automatic door, engine and headlights off. All in all, it had taken twenty minutes. Five minutes to take care of the three zombies inside the store, and before that, fifteen minutes were spent getting here, driving through Lower Manhattan down streets lined with charred piles of bodies and spent brass shell casings. The sweep, clear, and "rescue" by the armed forces had apparently started at the Battery and was moving north up Manhattan. I hadn't seen any soldiers, but plenty of dead bodies.

Outside the Hummer, I took a second to look up at the tall buildings surrounding me. There was evidence of the military operating here and disposing of any bodies they had deactivated by head trauma. I had to wonder, just how thorough their operations through these buildings had been. Were they focusing solely on residential properties, and only taking care of "street level" ghoul in a commercial area like the Financial District? Or did they have to go through every building, comb each single office, and climb every single floor, per Osborn's Order? Christ, I hope not, just for the sake of the soldier. Just walking into a Walgreen's was bad enough. Having to clear out a place like the Stock Exchange would probably make me freaking' desert.

The Financial District. I had been down here enough times in my career. Sometimes, I'd just pass through on my way somewhere else. Or I'd be meeting a client, or cracking a safe in some office, after everyone else had gone home. Or...one time, Spider-Man and I had been throwing down in the pit of the Stock Exchange. I can't remember what we were fighting over, but for a couple of minutes, I had the upper hand. There I was, in the last bastion of pure capitalism left on the planet, and every other stockbroker has gotten the hell out of Dodge. Save for one. This young turk, he's just holding a phone in one hand, and staring at me. I pointed one hand at him...and I remember putting on my toughest tough guy voice I could dredge up. "Hey, you...the Shocker wants to be a millionaire! Make it happen!"

Guy makes a few phone calls, cuts a few deals, and, with Spider-Man beaten, I walked out of that stock exchange with a couple million bucks, tax-free, deposited in a Cayman bank account.

True story. It ended up being confiscated by the IRS, but for one brief shining moment, I'd been rich.

Now, though...the windows didn't shine quite so bright in the buildings rising above me. The automated systems that ran the lighting systems in the high-price offices probably hadn't detected anyone moving around for days and were running in low-power mode (which, in a way, answered my question about soldiers going floor-by-floor). At this time of the night...well, it wasn't night anymore. It was O-Dark-Early, and the guys who played the European markets would just be arriving to work. Newspaper trucks would be dropping off the day's reading. The coffee kiosks tucked into the corners of the lobbies would already have customers. Even at this time of the morning, the heart of the American economy would be beating, pumping all that cash and trade out across the country and the rest of the world.

I'd lived in New York all my life. Most of it was spent across the river in Queens, and my adult life had seen me in a string of low-rent apartments and run-down warehouses. But at any time, you could look up, and see the Twin Towers rising to the sky, or the top of the Empire State Building up in Midtown. On the river, boats and barges pulling in to Brooklyn for off-loading. And just the...the feel of the city, its pulse, a New York minute the very thing most of America would have loved to experience, just once.

Now, the heart of the US economy, shut down, empty of life.

I think it was right there that I knew, somewhere inside my brain, that things would never, ever, be the same.

Ok, moment of moroseness over. Sitting here wistfully bemoaning the fall of New York City wasn't going to help Anne's diabetes. I took one last look at the Stock Exchange further up the block...

The shadow fell across me again. My eyes snapped towards the sky, and this time, I managed to catch a glimpse of it in flight. A man-shaped blur passed overhead, wings outstretched like an angel, high enough that its features were shrouded in darkness. My whole body turned in place as I watched it pass over me, gliding down the block. It wings flapped once, smoothly propelling the shape through the air, before it hung a right and disappeared from my view around the corner of a high-rise.

Now, this is the part in horror movies where the dumb main character follows the obviously out-of-place shadow, or investigates the weird noise, or checks out the abandoned house. And every one of us has thrown popcorn at the screen, calling them an idiot for risking their lives and walking right into the killer's trap. With that said, I wouldn't blame anyone reading this for tossing popcorn and shaking their head at my stupidity as I started up the block after the flying shape.

Let me at least try to explain my logic before you turn a six-dollar bag of popcorn into a missile weapon. That shape could have been a lot of things. It could have been some high-tech military drone built to act like a giant bird. It could have been some kind of flying superhero, like Falcon. Hell, it could have been the Avenging Angel of Walgreen's, since I had seen the same form earlier in the evening, crouching on top of the apartment building across the street from the Walgreen's Aleksei and I had...acquired our survival supplies from. It flown over me before taking up its watch post, and I had been distracted before I had gotten a good look at it. This time, I was determined to see what it was. I'm am engineer. I don't like unknown variables, especially when they turn up twice in a matter of hours.

And yeah, I was pursuing on foot. I could have used the Hummer, but in the end, it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

By the time I reached the end of the block, I could make out the same form turning to the left, disappearing again. My footsteps quickened as I ran down the empty street, save for an abandoned taxi parked in the middle of the road. I ignored the smear of red blood on bright yellow paint, the very sight of it now almost blasé to me...yeah, I know some French...and concentrated on the road. No zombies came into sight as I rounded the corner. Aside from an armored car parked outside a nearby bank, the road was clear of traffic or the living dead. Carefully, my eyes scanned the windows and balconies of the buildings around me, a mix of Art Deco architecture and poured concrete slab. Glass lobbies and golden statues lined the street, but my focus was on the ledges, the places to perch. My gloves were by my sides, my body language loose. I wasn't looking for a fight, I was looking for information. Each step was measured as I did my best to scan every square inch of stone and glass that lined the street. The streetlights shined their dim light as I walked down the road.

There. My hand clicked the vision enhancers in my mask, letting me zoom in. On the fifth floor ledge of the building to my right, the form was perched. It wings were folded around its body, and even with the electronic assistance, its features were lost in the darkness. Only its eyes shined, white pupils stark against its blank face. As I looked at it, it stared back at me, motionless, crouched still, like a predator waiting to pounce.

One thumb clicked against the trigger of my vibro-smasher as the other switched on my mask's infra-red sensors. They weren't much to write home about, and in a side filled with light pollution, I hardly ever used them. Better to have and not need, though, I thought as I switched over. Instantly, the world became a sea of green, the very bottom of my sight a bright white line from a nearby streetlamp. I fix my gaze on the figure...and make out nothing. The form is a pale green blob in my sights, featureless. I can barely determine its outlines.

Only the eyes show up. They dazzle brightly in the night-vision, piercing the green veil as the form keeps its sight on me. I focus on the eyes, the only evidence that the form is possibly alive. Pure white in a sea of green, the light blurs a bit on the edges, weaving back and forth like a heat shimmer. The gaze never wavers, not in the slightest, like spotlights from a prison movie, locked directly on the escapee.

So bright...I lean forward, trying to get a better view. The form finally shifts, the blob turning into an angel as the wings open up, spreading out to full extension. It stands up now, and I can see its arms extend towards me...the white lights of its eyes glint off the tips of metal claws at the end of its fingers. The shining points of lights draw my attention, my arms at my sides, full attention on this wondrous form that's crouching down, ready now to swoop down and engulf me in its wings...

Click.

"Hello," the voice says from beside me as he levels the .44.

The first thing I realize, after hearing the click of a gun's hammer, is that the form is gone.

One moment, it was preparing to fly down and grab me, and the next, it had vanished. I gazed at where the dark angel had been perched, but no evidence of its existence remained.

The guy with the gun, on the other hand, was quite real.

"Well look at this, guys. It's the Shocker," the voice gruffly said. "Thinking you'd rescue some rich fat cats down here on Wall Street?"

"Just stay cool, man." This voice came from behind me, low and quiet. "Shocker, turn off your gloves, and turn around, slowly."

It was just two of them. Ok, I could handle two of them...

"Man, we should just plug this wanna-be goody-two-shoes now." This was a third voice, high-pitched in tone. "Seriously, just waste him and let the zombies take care of the corpse."

"Shut up, Keller," the second voice said harshly.

"The boss ain't gonna like this," Keller replied. "Bad enough Hammerhead wanted a piece of our action, now the Shocker? Screw that, man..."

"How about we just ASK the boss, Keller?" This was the first guy, the one standing beside me. I couldn't make out his features from the corner of my eye, but I recognized the end of the long barrel of the .44 he was pointing at me. "First things first, though. Gloves off, Shocker."

"Alright, man." Three-on-one, against guys armed with guns...if they wanted to play it easy and talk, that was fine by me. Besides, this boss they were talking about, maybe it was the flying form. I put my thumb on the trigger of each vibro-smasher.

Clickclick. Click. Click.

A low hum came from my gauntlets as I completed the sequence, fading into silence after a few seconds while I was turning around to face them, holding my hands out to the sides in a non-combative manner. Three men, each armed with a .44 pistol, dressed in jeans and t-shirts. The ones on the sides were pointing them at me, and the smaller one, on the left, had a grin on his face as he looked me up and down. "So, Shocker. Ain't so tough now. Where's your buddy, the Rhinoceros?"

"His name's Rhino, Keller," the man in the middle said. "Stop trying to be a smart smart-ass, it doesn't work." He was holding a walkie-talkie in his hands, and clicked it to life. "Hey, boss...you won't believe who we came across just standing alone in the middle of the street." He eyed me up and down, as if he couldn't quite believe it either. "The Shocker."

After a few seconds, loud laughter came back from over the device. "You're kidding me! That's perfect, Smith. Bring him on in here. Maybe we can convince him to give us a hand."

"Roger." Smith lowered the walkie-talkie, and motioned with his head towards the other side of the street. "Come on, Shocker. Boss wants to see you."

"Yeah!" Keller stepped forward. "You're gonna love..."

His hand went to grab my arm, probably to pull me along in a display of toughness. The second he gripped my upper arm, though, the contact plates went off. With a loud crack, his hand got blown backwards, snapping his arm. "OW! SON OF A ..." he proclaimed, shaking his hand. The way it's been described to me was like holding an M-80 in your hand and letting it go off, without the bodily dismemberment. I smiled under my mask as Keller cursed loudly, using the opportunity to lift my arm and turn my night vision off.

"I thought you turned that stuff off, Shocker!"

"He shut down his gloves, Keller. If you didn't know by now not to grab the Shocker's suit, then you deserved what you got." Smith motioned again with his head. "Come on, Shocker, of your own free will. My boss is waiting in the bank."

The bank? The two men with the .44's followed behind me as I followed Smith. We passed by the armored car, its back doors wide open. Inside, I could make out, thanks to the backsplash from the streetlamp, several bags of money, laying about on the floor, along with several crates. Past the car, up a set of stone steps, the entrance to the Federal American Bank stretched above me, stone columns holding up the roof. A New York institution since the 1800's, it wasn't officially part of the Federal Reserve complex, but the government, as well as several companies, kept assets with the bank. Smith pointed to the front doors, which sat off their hinges, hanging crookedly in the frame. "Head on in, Shocker. Hang a right. Just don't try anything stupid."

Now, if I wanted to, I could have taken these three guys out without breaking a sweat. The guns made it a bit iffy, but three good blasts would have taken care of everything. I took my time heading into the bank, walking slowly, taking stock of my surroundings. Just inside the door, two goons, each armed with a submachine gun, nodded at me, and Smith, Keller, and the unnamed gunman. The foyer of the bank was dark, nearly pitch black, long shadows from the desks and teller stations reaching across the marble floor. Aside from the dim light coming in through the tall windows, the only source of illumination was coming from behind the long line of teller stations. Bright, flickering white light came in spurts, crackling and hissing with each burst. Any engineer worth his salt knew the noise...as did any safecracker.

Someone was using an acetylene torch.

Smith pointed back that way. I wove past the empty oak desks and through the swinging door leading towards the rear. I saw that the teller's stations had all been ransacked, drawers cracked open, coins and dollars bills covering the ground. I knew where we were going, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on.

"Using the end of the world to rob a bank, huh?" I said this to Smith, who was slightly behind me. "I admire the sense of timing, one bank robber to another."

"Wasn't my idea, but when the big man says go, I go. This time tomorrow, my ass is gonna be in a penthouse high above the streets."

"Color me jealous," I deadpanned.

We rounded the corner. A generator provided power to portable floodlights, illuminating the entire area. At the back of a long hallway, a thick metal door was set into the wall. I knew the make and model almost immediately; a Stark Enterprises X-09 high security vault. Quad-bolted, cobalt steel cores, layered steel plates, and enough wiring and false leads to drive nearly any safecracker mad. For me, it was about a two, maybe three hour job. A man knelt at one edge of the vault, light sparking from in front of him. He moved his arms up and down, moving the rubber hose that ran to a large blue tank set far back from the door. But it was the other man, arms crossed, staring at him, that got my attention. I knew the yellow-and-green outfit anywhere. Hell, I should. More often than not, the media got us confused anyway.

"Yo, boss," Smith said. "Just like you asked, here's the Shocker."

He turned, and from underneath the five-pointed yellow mask, bright white teeth smirked at me. "Well, well, well," a gruff voice remarked. "Just the man we could use for a job like this. Evening, Herman."

I gritted my teeth under my mask as I responded. "Hey, Electro."


	17. Shocker vs Electro, Round 1

Maxwell Dillon. Electro. The Villain of Voltage.

If there's any villain who could truly walk among the gods, Electro was one of them. Sure, he wouldn't get mentioned in the same breath as a guy like the Mandarin, or Doctor Doom, but sooner or later, his name would get thrown into the discussion. The response usually goes like this. "Electro? No way. Huh. Well, maybe...you know, yeah, I could see him pulling it off if he applied himself."

From what I had gathered over the years, from working with him and also drinking with him on occasion, Dillon's father left him at a very young age, leaving him with a smothering, over-protective mother. As Dillon grew up, he found himself interested in electricity and power plants, and told his Mom he wanted to be an electrical engineer. She, in turn, told him he wasn't smart. Flat out, "you're not intelligent enough to be an engineer, dear." So the guy gets a job as a line repair man with Consolidated Edison, and that would probably have been the end of Max's story, working out his days in a brown ConEd suit above the streets. One day, though, while he's working on top of an electrical tower repairing a power line, a freak lightning storm formed out of nowhere. Before Dillon could climb down and get to safety, he got struck by lightning while holding on to the metal tower with one hand and carrying a reel of one-inch cable wrapped around his shoulder. Now, normally, that'd mean the poor sap would be fried to a crisp...but something happened when all that voltage poured through his body. Instead of dying, Maxwell Dillon became a living electrical capacitor. He could generate a massive amount of electricity, enough to easily kill a normal human being. And the things he can do with that power...Electro can throw lightning bolts like Zeus. He can suck electricity from a building or a power grid and make himself faster and stronger. Give him enough juice and the guy can fly on currents of electrostatic.

Kind of like Rhino, Electro got an offer to have his powers increased for a period of servitude, this time to the Rose, Kingpin's son. Aside from the fact that he could generate enough juice to power Yankee Stadium and have enough left over to make Thor himself go "damn, that's a lot of lightning," after the Rose's scientists worked their mojo, Electro could absorb as much electricity as he wanted without worrying about overloading. Almost beats a pair of shock gauntlets and a quilted suit of armor any day of the week.

All that power...inside a scared little mind. Look at all the cool stuff Electro can do. That's more than most superheroes can pull off. He's taken control of the entire New York City power system, all that power in his body...and Spider-Man beat him. He got hired to break one person out of the Raft, and ended up starting a riot then ended in a mass escape...and then, when Luke Cage threatened to beat him up, he fainted.

Being a super villain isn't easy. I'll be honest here, guys and girls, I've sought therapy. Yeah, just like how there's a bar solely for us bad guys, there's doctors and shrinks for us as well. You'd be surprised how often a respectable practitioner of medicine wants to take a peek into the psyche of a master criminal. So yeah, I've been on the couch a few times, mostly after a sound ass-kicking from Spider-Man. Electro, though...the words "inferiority complex" don't do his problems justice. Electricity, the very power of the gods themselves, and he passes out at the threat of an Avenger beating him senseless. His parents must have done a doozy of a job screwing up Maxwell's childhood. All that ever stopped Electro from becoming one of the, pun intended, power players, was the fact that every time the going got good, he had to ask himself "what's going to go wrong?" If the going's good, man, just keep going and ride that streak as long as you can. The second Electro doubts himself, it doesn't matter how much juice he's wielding, or how much wattage he's tossing around. One moment of worry with him, and it all comes crashing down.

To answer the question hanging in the air...we've tangled once. And Electro won by knockout.

X

"This is pretty ballsy, Max," I told him as we stood facing one another. I had to speak up a little bit to make sure Electro heard me over the hissing of the torch and the humming of the generator. "Robbing a bank in the middle of a zombie uprising? You ain't afraid someone's gonna wander in here and take a bite out of crime?"

Electro gave a grating laugh in return. "You're the one who's been out walking the streets. You see any zombies looking to make a deposit this evening?" He swept an arm towards the wide windows near the top of the lobby. "It's clear, man. Get below John Street, and there it isn't any worse than normal, just corpses instead of bums harassing you. God bless the United States Army, Herman. They take care of the dead, we sweep in and take care of the rest."

I had to give it to Electro, that made sense. "That's pretty damn smart, Max."

"Why, thanks, Herman. Can't take all the credit, though. It was my boss' idea. I'd rather be on my way to a tropical island with as many Empire State sorority girls and fraternity boys crammed into the hold of my boat as possible, but when he says 'jump,' I'm already in mid-air before asking 'how high.' And when he says 'go rob this bank,' I'm out the door before he finishes." Electro shrugged. "But hey, right now, I'll take the promise of security, the way this city seems to be going down the drain." He studied me for a second, eying me up, and all the while I'm trying not to blatantly stare at the five-pointed jagged star he calls his mask. After a few seconds, he puts out a gloved hand. "Glad to see you're in one piece, Herman."

"Can say the same to you, Max. Nice to see you're among the still living." The guy called Smith relaxed slightly as the two of us shook hands in front of the vault door.

Alright, so he's got a boss, Max just let slip. And it can't be Tombstone...and it can't be Hammerhead...so who the hell else? Well, the indirect direct approach sometimes works. "You working for the Rose again?"

"Nope," Electro replied. "This guy...well, let's just say you should be hearing from him soon. He's been looking for you since the first night, but someone's done a good job of keeping a low profile since getting his face plastered all over the news." He sent another smirk my direction, turning his head slightly. "You've seen him around, he just hasn't had a chance to come say 'hello' yet."

"Max, I really ain't in the mood to play games, especially since it was your goons with guns who frog-marched me in here to see you." I crossed my arms over my chest, and as best I could through my mask, sent a withering glare his way. "So cut the crap, and just tell me who you're working for."

He stared at me for a second through that ridiculous looking five-starred mask, before waving for Smith to come over. The man who had led me in to the bank trotted to Electro, waiting for his orders. "You keep an eye on that vault. When he cuts through, you come and get me. Got it?" Smith responded with a firm nod. With a nod of his head, Electro motioned for me to follow him. We went back out into the main area of the bank, behind the teller stations. The click of our boots on the marble floor became more audible as we moved away from where the work was being done. At the far wall, four green leather chairs were set around a small table, a place for the tellers to take a small break during working hours. "Let's take a load off, Herman," Maxwell said, motioning to one of the chairs. "Been on my feet non-stop supervising, and I need a break."

I eyed him as I sank into one of the chairs. Damn...this was a comfy chair. Much nicer then the IKEA futons back at my place. Electro sat down opposite me, putting one yellow boot on the table. "Ah...so, Herman. How's life and death treating you these past few days?"

"About as well as you can expect. Like you said, keeping a low profile after that first night," I answered. "No reason to stick my head out and risk getting it chomped off."

"Tell me about it," Maxwell grinned in response. "I'd rather be anywhere else but here robbing a bank. Speaking of which...if you're trying to keep a low-profile, why are you out and about tonight, Herman?"

Max thought he was being smooth and slick, but I could see through him. The guy was feeling me out, trying to poke holes in my story. Standard villain technique, usually coming into play during any sort of brag or boast one of us makes, with the others poking holes in the comments. I could have lied to him, saying I was looking for a score and just happened to run into him...but the odds of that happening were slim enough without an inquisitive Electro probing me about it.

So, once again, I find myself falling back on the concept of being honest.

Well, semi-honest.

"I need medicine. I got this woman back at my hideout, real piece of work. Diabetes, though, and she's gonna run out of insulin soon." I patted the pocket on the front of my suit. "The drug store closest to my place wasn't viable, so I took a guess that this part of town would rather have been swept or abandoned. I guessed right."

"Huh. You risked your life for a chick?"

"She cooks."

"Touché," Electro replied with a grin. "You walk?"

"Hummer," I replied. "Just found one, keys in the ignition. Full tank of gas too, and since I don't have to pay for it anymore..."

Max pointed towards the open door. "That's why we got the armored car. Big, strong, and gas prices ain't a concern anymore." He looked down at the table, and suddenly, his face brightened...literally, a warm, dim yellow glow appearing on his features. "Hey, lollipops." He took a sucker from the metal vase just beside his foot. It's hard to take a guy seriously when he's sucking on a lollipop, and Maxwell Dillon was no Kojak. "So where are you driving from, Herman? The Battery? Down by the docks?"

"Depends, Max," I responded as he dropped the wrapper into a nearby wastebasket. "Where are you and your boss coming from?"

He rolled the candy around in his mouth, head back as he laughed. "Come on, Herman. You know what's going on here. Why don't the two of us just cut right to the chase? We've known each other long enough."

"Perfectly fine by me, Max." I leaned forward in my chair, sitting on the edge, taking charge instead of lounging back. "So who the hell is your boss, and why should I expect to hear from him soon?"

His response was to wag a finger at me. A little trail of sparks glowed in the air as he shook his hand. "No, Herman. No, it's not that easy. My boss wants to meet you, because he's definitely impressed by that...7-11 job you pulled off the other night. The problem is...well...ever since then, no one's heard anything about you. Or Rhino, for that matter. And you may be able to keep a low profile, but a guy like Aleksei...unless you're keeping him on a leash."

"I'm not his handler," I said. "But yeah, Aleksei's with me. He's holding down the fort right now. He ain't exactly one for...a quiet smash-and-grab. So I'm keeping my head down. Maybe I learned my lesson the other night, trying to actually help someone, do something altruistic, and ending up almost getting skewered by Hawkeye. What, you think I'm gonna be like Mysterio, making a scene and drawing attention to myself? I bet old Fishbowl Head probably gets eaten trying to pull a Pied Piper or something if the cops don't get him first."

The sound of amusement echoed around the empty bank as Electro laughed. "That's an image! Just walk them right off the deck of the Intrepid."

It was a funny image...Mysterio floating just off the edge of the aircraft carrier, zombies plunging into the East River...

"Seriously, my head is down and after tonight, I ain't going back out on the streets for all the tea in China. So I don't know what your boss would want with me. Unless those zombies break down my door, I'm content to just sit and wait for them to rot away to nothing, Max."

Maybe that was true, and maybe it wasn't, but for now, it seemed like a good answer. It got Electro's attention, because now he leaned forward, still working that lollipop around in his mouth, reminding of Wolverine earlier and his cigar stub. "See, Herman...that's not an option. Because my boss wants to meet you, and make you an offer. And trust me, you want to hear this offer. Once this all settles and things get back to normal, he's gonna remember who was on his side and who wasn't."

"Don't give me that line of bull, Max. You sound like the President." I waved my hand now towards the high windows. "Do you think this is all going to just settle, to go back to normal? Things are changing...things have changed, Max. The rules got rewritten. Think about it. Right now, you and I are having a nice, calm, relatively civil conversation in the middle of the Federal American Bank. If this was any other night, even if the damn Skrulls were launching a planetary invasion, someone would have shown up to stop you. Spider-Man popping in for five minutes on his way to get a kid's balloon out of a tree, or Moon Knight walking his dog. Honest question, Electro, have you seen a single cape since this whole thing began?"

The living dynamo shook his head. "So a bunch of people die, Herman. You and I, we can put them back down again, the eggheads figure out how to make them not get back up, and the world goes back to normal, just with a lot less people in it. Look at it like this, Herman. Who's gonna make it? Who's gonna survive this thing? You. Me. Rhino. The ones who ain't dumb enough to put themselves in harm's way. And with the capes exhausted from trying to save everyone else, they're gonna be easy pickings, Herman." His voice...sounded confident. Maxwell Dillon, almost boasting without the underlying current of worry and doubt. Did he believe this? That somehow, everything would get turned right side up again, and we'd all just go back to how we were before?

And more importantly...what if he was right? What if I'm left holding the bag and a guy like Electro's finally running with the big dogs? And I missed my chance to finally hit the top tier, after years of...

Alright, alright, I'm getting off course here. Focus. It could be Max trading inferiority for megalomania. "Max...that's a bit...that's a bit tough. You really think Tombstone could pull something like that off?"

"Tombstone? You think I'm working for Tombstone? Herman...Tombstone's nothing. A bit player in the grand scheme of things at best."

I blinked at that comment. Ok, then it had to be the Kingpin. He was the only guy in New York who could command that type of pull, to get Tombstone to follow his orders. But the tense Max used...I guess he didn't know Tombstone was currently a corpse a couple of blocks away. "The Kingpin, then? You jumped from the Rose to Wilson Fisk? That's actually..."

"Fisk's over in Queens. As soon as everything hit the fan, he went to Riker's Island, blew the bridge, and last I heard, cracked open an emergency shelter he had prepped years ago for just an occasion. It's him and about 2000 angry prisoners, and...well, Herman, he's building an army."

Pause.

"Doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, though. 2000 soldiers ain't nothing compared to what my boss can do. It's like I said," Electro beamed as I sat there in silence, "my boss has a plan. When it's all over with, Herman, we're all gonna have a seat at the table, without guys like Spider-Man ruining it for us. Question is, Herman...you gonna have a seat there too, or are you going to be left out in the cold?"

Electro's robbing a bank at some guy's request, a guy who can blow off a player like Tombstone or a mob boss like Wilson Fisk...and where did that flying shadow tie into all of it? My brain was working overtime, trying to draw some kind of schematic to figure everything out. But the pieces just weren't fitting together, no matter how I twisted, turned, or jammed them together.

But ignoring that for a second...a place at the table. To no longer be a laughing stock, to actually have a chance to BE someone...not even that. A chance for that chance, to make something of an opportunity. That's what grabbed me. Being nice, being the good guy, what had it gotten me? Almost bitten and devoured, almost shot by Hawkeye, almost stabbed by Wolverine, not to mention all the aches and bruises...to play with the big boys. That sounded great...and I could easily get Fred to go along with it, no problem. Aleksei...depending on if he was still on his good guy kick...

"Look, Herman. Maybe I can help you get over your concern about not knowing who this guy is." Electro's words stopped my train of thought as he pulled his feet down from the little table. "My boss...like I said, the 7-11 thing earlier...altruism's not a strong virtue in his book. That explains the frog-marching earlier...I had to make sure you were still one of us and not someone with a sudden burst of heroism just because the dead are rising from the graves. Maybe he'd be more up to letting me tell you who he is if you give me a hand with what I'm working on now."

I looked over my shoulder. The end of the hallway leading to the vault flickered with a mix of shadow and light. "You want me to help you crack that vault?"

"Yes. Shouldn't be too hard for you, right?"

Two, three hours.

"I know you're one of the world's best safecrackers, Herman," Electro said smoothly. "Your lady friend can keep for a bit, right? Come on...at least, help an old friend out, maybe earn some brownie points with my boss. I'll even see if he'll cut you in on the take."

"What's in there that's so important?"

"A bunch of gold," Electro said. "Once everything comes back, money's probably gonna be worthless. Gold, though, it'll still be worth something. Artwork. Guns. Basically anything that's value it real, not paper. Hell, in a few weeks, we'll be using hundred dollar bills as toilet paper, Herman. Bank on it," he grinned. "There's a whole bunch of gold in that vault that belongs to the Federal Reserve. They were redoing the vaults and needed a place to put some of it. Specifically, that's Wakandan gold in there." Electro's body gave off that warm glow again as he said, "Imagine stealing the Black Panther's gold. Kind of exciting, ain't it?" He stood up, stretching a bit as he stared down at me. "Come on, Herman. Very least, it'll be a nice change of pace to crack a safe instead of cracking a skull."

Still sitting, I looked up at him. "One condition, Max. When we crack that thing open, you tell me who your boss is. No stalls, no deferments, just a name. Got it?"

After a few seconds, Max put his hand out to me. "Deal." His hand buzzed slightly as we pumped out a handshake, and I stood up with his assistance. "Yates has been working on that thing for an hour now. We thought we could weld right through it, but it's been taking longer than we thought."

"There's your problem," I told him as we began to head back towards the vault door. "That's a Stark Enterprises vault. Cobalt steel locks, quad-bolted. The more heat you apply to it, the more it expands. They added some kind of isotope when they forged it. So you're cutting a hole, but you're also forcing the bolts deeper into the setting." That was about as layman as I could sound, having only heard about this type of vault once. Read it in a translated Chinese magazine about Stark's new toys. They get everything first...I remember a story the Beetle had told me once. He had jacked a brand new prototype from a research firm in Los Angeles, military-grade hacking hardware, and handed it off to his buyer before hopping a plane to Shanghai for another job. He's walking through the marketplace, and at the end of the row, some kid is selling a knock-off CD of the prototype software, same specs, same capabilities. Beetle bought it and ended up using it for two months before the technology caught up with him. Guess it's the same with security doors.

"So what the hell do we have to do? Can't we just keep cutting and cutting and eventually just brute force your way through?" Electro and I were now standing at the end of the hallway. The guy at the vault, Yates, had just turned off the torch. He lifted his welding goggles, and I saw the sweat around his eyes and on his forehead.

He saw Electro at the far end of the way, and waved a hand. "Torch needs a break, boss. It's getting too hot!"

"It's going to," I replied to Max. "And yeah, if you had hours and hours, you could cut through the bolts, or go through the layered steel plating. But we don't have hours, because the sun's gonna be up, and I'll willing to bet sooner or later, there's gonna be a patrol through here. Looters, maybe."

"Great..." Electro rubbed his chin, before motioning for me to step forward. "Well, go take a look at it. Just remember, failure isn't an option. My boss doesn't like failure."

Yates moved to the side as I approached the vault door. I crouched down to examine the work he had been doing with the torch. The hole he had cut was just below one of the vault's locking wheels. "Hmm...how long have you been at it?"

"About an hour. That damn metal won't budge. Tried every heat and flame mixture I could think of. Nothing," he said. "That thing's locked tighter then the Wasp's booty."

"It's meant to be impossible," I replied. While my eyes studied the hole, looking at the composition of the door underneath, I removed my vibro-smashers, and then my gloves. By the time I set them all on the floor, the metal around the hole was still hot, but rapidly cooling. "Cutting this vault door is impossible. Near-impossible, because given time, you can cut through anything, but this is hours, maybe even a day of work." I lightly rapped the metal. "Layered steel with vacuum in between. So the heat doesn't transfer easily, so it's almost like starting from scratch with each new layer."

For a guy who walks around with the capability to demolish a building with either a few well-placed shots, or one big-ass explosion...this was where it all started, just me and a safe, man vs. something machined. In the chaos of the past two nights this was familiar. Safe. My mind was shifting gears, downshifting from "survival mode" into "puzzle mode." This was Tetris on crack, a Rubik's Cube while on LSD...it felt damn well like home to me. My comfort zone.

"Alright...huh. That's new." The metal was cool enough for me to lightly rub the tip of my finger along the melted walls of the opening the torch had cut. Mostly smooth, my finger ran over several sharp objects, just poking above the surface.

"What's new," Yates asked, looking over my shoulder as I made my exam.

"They threaded wires through the metal," I replied. "If I had to guess, they're drawing heat away from the metal where you're cutting. It's spreading out the heat throughout the layer instead of letting it concentrate in one spot. Huh," I said, impressed. I didn't know if I was right, but I was willing to bank on it.

"That's a lot of work for just a vault door. I've broken into some high-class joints, Shocker, but nothing ever this complex." Yates was shaking his head as he spoke. "It explains why the torch wasn't working."

"It's a Stark door. They know their stuff." The lock was probably a nightmare. Twin locks, actually, one on the top where Yates had been cutting, one near the bottom, each one quad-bolted. As I stared at the one of the top, I realized that something wasn't right. It looked like a standard high-security lock, but...it was incomplete somehow. Something was missing. But I couldn't figure out what.

"Herman, you got anything yet?"

I waved a hand at Electro, trying to keep him quiet. It was right in front of me, but I couldn't...

Oh. That was pretty damn clever.

I smiled to myself in quiet triumph. "It's a time lock. They don't open this vault when they want to...they open it when the clock says they can." I stood back up, brushing my hands on my knees before pulling my gloves back on. "This type of vault, Electro, it's for people who can afford to show up when the bank tells them to. You can't really open it until the appointed time of day."

"You're kidding." Electro walked up beside me, staring helplessly at the vault door. "So we just gotta wait until...when?"

"No clue. And even then, you probably need a passcode or a set of keys." Ok, the good news was, I knew how the vault was opened. The problem was actually opening it.

"You can do this, right, Herman?"

"Max, it hasn't been five minutes. Back off, man, I'm a professional." Electro moved a few steps behind me, but I could still feel his impatient gaze on my back. Screw him. If he wants this done, don't rush me. Ok, time clock, keypad...there had to be an override, right? In case someone gets trapped in the vault...you couldn't well have the Grand Prince of Saudi Arabia locked inside a vault. But you couldn't just open it...you had to let someone else know you were opening it, and I was willing to be they could, in a pinch, do it from off-site. Which meant, somehow, the door had a computer or phone line connection.

Bingo.

"You guys cut the power and phone lines before coming in, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Electro confirmed. "Force of habit, but figured it couldn't hurt. Why?"

"I'm willing to bet, Max, that this place had an off-site failsafe." I turned to face him, gesturing to the vault as well as to the nearby window. "Someone sitting in a suite at Stark could open the fault as a last-ditch effort, like if someone got trapped inside, or probably lock it back up if a robbery happened when the door was open."

Snapping his fingers, Electro nodded in agreement. "Yeah...yeah, Herman, that makes sense. So, what, did we put it into lockdown when we cut the power?"

"Not quite. You just...you cut the vault off from the outside world. I'm sure the clock it runs on has battery power, and right now there's a light blinking somewhere letting the security guy know that there's a power outage at the bank, but I'm willing to bet he's got bigger fish to fry right now."

"Heh...it's nice to walk around and know there ain't a shoot-on-sight rule for looters, ain't it, Herman?"

"Yeah, well, Osborn would rather soldiers and cops spend time roosting civilians from their homes then taking shots at us."

Electro smirked at the comment. "Alright then, Herman, so now what? We turn the power back on and go from there?"

"Don't even need to, Max. All you have to do now, I bet, is find the junction box leading to the vault." I looked at the wall leading away from the vault. "I'm willing to bet a good solid jolt of electricity would be enough to trigger the fail safe and swing that vault door open." After a few seconds, I nodded firmly. "Yeah, Max, that would do it."

"You sure," Electro asked with a bit of skepticism.

"I'd say 75% sure. I don't know what kind of power surge protection this bank has, but I'm willing to bet you could overload your way past it, Max."

"Damn right I can. Alright, step aside, Herman. It's my show now." I moved back to let Max pass me. He looked at the vault as he extended his arm. The tip of his index finger sparked slightly as, slowly, Max started to side-step to his right. "There's a power conduit...it's the only one leading to the vault..." He was talking to himself, mumbling, as his finger acted like a voltage meter. Even a small amount of electricity would be attracted to a set of copper wires and fiber optics, letting Electro see, in his own unique way, what was behind the wall. He moved carefully, a man in his element now, tracing power lines as the wattage moved through him.

After a few seconds, he closed his hand, rapping gently on the wall with his fist. "Right here, Herman. Security panel. Think that's your junction box?" I nodded as the mooks on Electro's team stood silently by, watching the pros at work. "Alright. How much juice am I pumping into this thing?"

"Enough to overload it, but not enough to melt it. You don't want to set the fire sprinklers off."

Electro smirked at me. "Cake." He laid his hand flat against the wall, and closed his eyes. As we all watched, his body slowly began to glow. Yellow light washed over him, gently as first, but within seconds, it had turned from soft rays to cracking bolts. Lightning spun and twisted around Maxwell Dillon's body, shooting through his personal paths of least resistance as he charged himself up, a capacitor and battery in human form. I had to admit...I was impressed, and maybe a bit jealous. The things I could have done with his power...

His eyes were almost golden as they snapped open. In one quick, snapping motion, the electricity shot from all over his body towards the palm of his hand, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, all coming to a point where his body met the wall. At it flowed into the masonry, sparks shot into the air, scorching the brick around his hand to leave a black outline.

Click. From behind us.

Smiling, with a few strays bolts twirling around his shoulders, Electro turned back to me. "That did the trick," he proclaimed as he pulled his arm back.

"Boss, the vault's open!" That was Yates, who was grabbing at the edge of the large door, along with Smith. Together, they slowly pulled the circular door open, and the two of them, along with Keller and the unnamed goon, were soon looking inside with the aid of the generator lights. "You were right, Electro...there's a fortune in gold in here!"

Rarely had I seen Electro smiling as wide as he was at that moment. "Nice job, Herman. When I talk to my boss in a few minutes, I'm definitely gonna put in a good word for you." He turned, going to walk over to the vault to grab a look himself...

My hand grabbed his shoulder. "That wasn't the deal, Max," I told him. "You said you'd call your boss when the vault door was open. The door's open. Call him now."

"Relax, Herman." Electro tried to brush my hand off his shoulder. "Let me get a look at what we're dealing with and I'll call him..." He cut-off in mid-sentence, wincing slightly under the grip of my gauntlet on his shoulder.

"I said, now, Max."

"Alright, alright!" He batted my arm off of his shoulder, the smile gone from his face now. Instead, he glared at me, his teeth gritted, and I didn't really care. I know how this works. Someone, or something, would interrupt us, and I'd lose my chance to find this out. Well, forget that, I'm playing it smart. The gold ain't gonna get up and walk away. That's a job for the dead. And I didn't care, really, if I hurt Electro's precious feelings in the process.

Still stabbing me mentally, Electro pulled a cell phone out of his costume. As he flipped it open, he barked orders to his crew. "Ok, guys, we came here for the gold and the jewelry, so get those first. Move those lights in there, I want every single nook and cranny emptied. If we got the room and we got the time, we'll get the bearer bonds and anything else. No cash, strictly hard goods, and anyone who gets greedy, I'll zap you and leave you for the zombies. Hey, you guys up front! Forget the door, the vault's open, get in there and give them a hand!"

The mooks did as they were told. The guys who had been guarding the front door double-timed it to the vault as Yates and his crew began to move the lights closer to the vault, dragging the generator behind them, as Electro looked at his phone. "Alright, Herman, I'm calling him now. Are you happy?"

"Not until I talk to him, Max. Then, I'll be happy as a clam."

"Alright, alright..." Arms crossed, I watched as Electro punched a few buttons, and then held the phone up to his ear. "Reception hasn't been too bad," Max told me. "You'd think the towers would be down or at least the government would have hijacked the signals for official uses."

"Think FEMA has back-up generators for cell phone towers now. They put them in place after 9/11, so the network doesn't go down in case a big national disaster happens."

"Makes sense...oh, hey, it's Electro, boss." He kept his facing towards me as he talked. "We got the vault door open. The guys are getting all the gold and gems now. Yeah. Well, if got room, we'll go back for those, but like you said, the precious metals are the top priority. Uh huh. Nope, no zombies once we crossed John Street...but we did find something interesting. You won't believe who I got here. Herman Schultz."

Electro looked at me, nodding even though the guy on the other end couldn't see him. "Lady, I ain't lying. My guys found him wandering out on the street and brought him on in. He helped us crack the vault, actually. Uh huh. Yeah. No, it's just him. He says Rhino's back at their hideout holding things down."

I extended my arm towards him, motioning with my fingers for the phone. Electro responded by holding up a finger, telling me to wait. "Herman wants to talk to the boss. Yeah. Sure. No, what you heard was right. Alright, no problem...hey, can you say that again, I think...alright. Can do. Here, I'm gonna take care of that as soon as I hand you over. See you in a couple of hours with the goods."

Electro lobbed the phone in my direction. "My boss says he's been looking forward to this since the 7-11 job."

I caught it with one hand, and raised the phone to my ear. "Shocker here. Who is this?"

A rough voice scratched out an answer. "The last voice you'll ever hear. Goodbye, Schultz."

I was already dropping the phone by "hear," but it was too late. The bolt of lightning slammed into my chest, a lance of white hot pain. The phone clattered to the ground an instant before my body joined it, the sheer energy of the bolt throwing me to the floor.

Before I could sit up, a yellow boot stomped on my chest. Grinding his heel down, Electro, looming above me, clutched a fistful of lightning. "Sorry, Herman. Boss says you gotta get dead. For good."

X

The evil grin on Electro's face told me just how much he was enjoying this. The energy cackled around his fist as his foot ground into my sternum. "Herman, Herman, Herman," he sneered. "Why did you have to spin all those lies earlier? You could have just told the truth, and this might have gone a lot easier for you."

"What do you mean?" I shifted as best I could, trying to relieve the pressure on my chest. "I didn't lie!"

"Oh? Then you weren't out and about with Rhino earlier this evening? You didn't loot a Walgreen's? You didn't rescue two kids from a building? You didn't run into Wolverine? And, more importantly...you didn't steal the stuff from Tombstone's trailer? A whole bunch of gold and guns...that was going to my boss?"

Oh, crap.

"That's why? Come on Max, I found a Hummer and a whole bunch of stuff in a trailer. What the hell was I supposed to do? There wasn't a sign that said 'do not touch, this stuff does not belong to the now-dead Tombstone, but to someone else entirely, touch it, and die?' Seriously, I thought it was abandoned!"

"Ignorance is no excuse, Herman. How many times have you said that to ME," he spat. "Without Rhino around to watch your back, my boss figured it's the perfect time to off you and just dump your body somewhere. Don't worry, though. I promise you won't come back walking around like one of those things. It's the least I could do for a friend.

"Great," I said. "Come on, you don't have to do this, Max. Just let me walk away and I'll keep my head down, I promise. No more nightly excursions..."

Electro shook his head. "No can do, Herman. He'll find out, and then it's my ass on the hook, not yours. Besides...I kind of admit," he said as he flexed his leg, pushing down into my chest, "I'm looking forward to being the one to put you down. You always had to be just a little superior, just a little smug, because you took the time to plan stuff out. All that time, trying to be just a little more professional, to work a better rep...look who's acting on the spur of the moment, Herman, and who's about to move up in my boss' eyes." He clenched his fist tighter, and the lightning cloud moved faster around his knuckles. "Helpless, no gloves to save you...you shouldn't have turned them off, Herman. You got any last words before I fry you?"

"Yeah. Who told you I turned my gloves off?"

Electro's eyes widened suddenly, and he threw his fist down, trying to shock me. By inches, I was quicker on the draw. I only had enough time to hold down the trigger for a level one blast, but one from each glove caught Electro right under his chin, knocking him off of me and letting me breathe again.

Yeah, don't act so surprised. Of course I had a fake shutdown program. Add a couple of loud beeps and boops, and people think you're no longer a threat.

I fired off another set of level one's as I got back to my feet, hitting Electro in the chest and staggering him. Once upright, my next move was a carefully conceived action of tactical brilliance...

My ass dove behind the nearest desk. And instantly, I scrambled on the floor to the next desk over, a thick oak desk probably belonging to a vice-executive secondary loan officer that made more in a week then I made all year. I just made it before a lightning bolt slammed into the desk I had just moved from, blowing away the varnished wood to leave a scorch mark. I crouched just next to the chair, hands pressed against the set of wooden drawers on the right side.

"Boss? You ok..."

"Smith, just keep doing what you're doing. I can handle the Shocker." I heard footsteps as he approached the desk where I was hiding. "Keller, you go cover the back entrance. Make sure he doesn't escape!"

Loud footsteps masked Electro's softer ones, but I could make out his shadow on the ground, coming closer to the front of the desk. I waited a few more seconds, and then pushed against the desk while firing off a level one. Like a swivel, the desk pivoted, the right end moving outwards like a swinging door. I heard a loud noise as the edge of the desk impacted against Electro as just above thigh level. That was my cue to shoot up from where I had been crouched, just as Electro was staggering backwards, wincing from the impact. This time, the bastard caught a level two right to the chest, and it was his turn to go staggering backwards, the breath leaving his body from the impact. Now, I could have just blasted him again, but that...didn't seem appropriate. The bastard has tried to kill me, actually kill me.

The wooden chair that went with the oak desk was just big enough for me to get a firm grip on. I lifted it into the air as Electro stumbled forward again, his thighs aching, but still mobile. Maybe it was the pain, maybe anger, or maybe just confusion, but he barely reacted and just managed to get his arm up as I brought the heavy chair down over his head. I followed through, putting as much behind the attack as I could. Splinters flew everywhere as the chair cracked, $3000 dollars worth of seating ruined in a few minutes over Maxwell's head.

THAT was appropriate.

He half-turned away, covering his head, and that was my cue to finish the job. What was left of the chair came crashing down across his back. The impact was enough to drive him to his knees. The chair was beyond use now, and I tossed it away. It smacked against a pair of interior windows along the hallway leading to the vault and fell down to the ground.

Electro was trying to get back up, but a firm kick to the ribs was enough to keep him down. "You tried to kill me, Max! Kill me! What, because your boss told you to!" My voice was loud enough to echo a bit as I stomped him again, enjoying the sound of him yelling out in pain. "Come on, you're..."

The first bullet zipped past my ear. I managed to hit the ground before realizing why I was throwing myself down, but when the burst of gunfire shot over my head, I knew exactly what I was running from. The bullets cracked the glass, not breaking it, but leaving several small holes stitched across the window. Electro was still down, but quickly moving out of my line of sight as he crawled behind one of the desks. I pushed myself across the floor, managing to get behind another desk as more shots fired across the room. My back was against the desk when I heard Electro yell in a groggy tone. "Keller, don't! You're gonna hit me, idiot! Just keep an eye on the back door, don't let Herman out, and don't let any of those things in!" I heard the Villain of Voltage cough slightly, along with catching the sounds of rubber soles in tile floor as Keller retreated towards the back door, leaving me and Electro to battle it out.

Alright, a little interlude to explain some things. Yeah, this disrupts the flow of the narrative...again...but you should be used to it by now if you've read this far into my story. I'm a lot more comfortable just giving you the exposition and explanations without trying to shoe-horn it in. "Stilt-Man tried to stomp me. His legs could generate 5000 psi with the proper application of force. He had stolen the design for the armor years ago from..." Yo, Stilt-Man's trying to step on you, less time explaining, more time moving! I don't care what you've been told, in the super powered world, talking ain't a free action. The only reason I can take these brief time-outs is because I'm spinning this tale after the proverbial fact.

You know...right now, I kinda miss Stilt-Man. Wilbur Day may not have been the best criminal...the guy made the freaking Ringer look professional...but walking 10 stories above the street, stomping on zombies while well out of arms' reach, and able to rescue kids from the top floor of an apartment building without having to fight his way through the entire complex. I think he might have finally, after all these years, been in his element.

So anyway, I've obviously hit the pause button on the fight between me and Electro, so let me lay out the nitty gritty. I could have run away from this fight. Just take out Keller, run for the back door, and let it be. Problem was...Electro. And his boss. Both would be pissed. Both would come looking for me. And the last thing I needed was someone showing up at my hideout, throwing down for a tussle, with civilians on the inside and zombies on the outside. I've seen the movies, conflict on the inside leads to holes in security, and then the living dead pour through and...it never ends well.

So let this be my battlefield, then. I'll pummel Electro senseless, enough that he and his boss will know in the future not to screw over Herman Schultz.

Electro can throw lightning around. I can shoot vibro-blasts from range. However, since lightning follows the path of least resistance, and I'm walking around with metal gloves, boots, and belts on, he's gonna be more accurate than me at range because his shots are gonna home right in. Advantage, Electro.

He cut the power to the bank. Which means, the only source of electricity, other then what he makes, is the generator, and the mooks on his crew moved it to the vault for they'd have light. Meanwhile, I'm still at full charge. Advantage, Shocker.

Hand-to-hand, he gets stronger the more juice he's storing. I hit like a truck if I can land a good shot. Call that a draw.

I'm wearing my quilted armor. It acts as an insulator. Getting hit by electricity isn't going to feel pleasant, but my suit will take most of it, and it's built to handle overloads without shorting out. The uniform Electro's wearing isn't gonna to do much to stop a vibro-blast from hitting him with full force. Advantage, Shocker.

And the last, and most important thing...I'm smarter than him. Maybe it's not 'smarter,' per se, since the guy could have become an electrical engineer, but I could definitely out think him and outwit him.

Of course, my plan doesn't call for being very witty or clever...so maybe the above doesn't matter. But hey, it's what you get when you write what you're thinking without thinking about what you're writing. My plan was simple. End the fight before he could generate enough personal charge to make things difficult by getting in his face and smashing it repeatedly. The more juice he generated, the tougher he'd be to stop. In order to walk out of here, I had to end this fight, and end it early.

First things first, though. Keller, the high-pitched guy with the submachine gun. He could cause problems. I didn't fancy the idea of crossing any type of open area with him spraying bullets at me. One or two might hit, and that'd really ruin my day. I didn't need him down and out, though. Just distracted.

I held down the trigger on my vibro-smasher, and reached up over the desk. I twisted my hand to point at what I thought was the hallway leading towards the back door. A few seconds after exposing my hand, gunfire erupted from that direction. The bullets sailed over the top of the desk I was hiding behind, coming from my left. A quick turn of the wrist to refine my aim...

I fired the level-three blast blind, in what I hope is the general direction of Keller and his submachine gun. Almost immediately, I hear the sound of exploding masonry, and a loud yelp. But more importantly, I hear the distinct and utter lack of gunfire. Instantly, I sprung to my feet, and with as smooth a motion as I could manage, I stepped up on top of the desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a cloud of stone dust floating in the air, and hear Keller's stream of cursing. But more importantly, two up and one over, back against the wall under one of the interior windows, the top of a five-pointed yellow star poked over the edge of a desk. Without pausing, I leapt from desk to desk, almost running, moving quickly before Keller could recover and open fire on the easy target I was presenting him. Blotters, pens, lamps, I knocked them all over as I closed in on Electro. As soon as I reached the edge of the desk he cowered behind, I leapt high into the air, full extension on my legs for maximum height.

He had been trying to get back to his feet, pulling at the desk for assistance, when he saw me crash down towards him. Electro cried out in surprise, but he didn't have time to react as I slammed both feet into his sternum, sweet revenge for what he did to mine just a minute earlier. His yellow-gloved hand slipped from the desk, and he fell flat on the floor as I landed, one foot on the floor, one still on his chest. The sound of him wheezing at the impact did nothing to stay my hand. The foot on his chest became a knee as I dropped, driving the joint into where I believed his lungs to be located. Electro's hands flailed as the breath left his body, seeking purchase anywhere they could find them. I didn't give him a moment, though. Pulling back my fist, I brought it down on his face, catching the side of his jaw with a cross.

"You tried to kill me, Max," I repeated as I landed a second punch. I could feel the impact from each blow as my vibro-smashers activated at the impact. The third punch drew blood from his nose, and his gestures became more and more frantic. I didn't care. At this point, forget mercy. I wasn't going to kill him, but when he dragged his ass back before whoever the hell his boss was, both of them would know what a fight with the Shocker would entail, and hopefully, that'd be enough to dissuade them.

Two more punches seemed to stun Electro. "When you wake up, you dim bulb," I said to him as his eyes tried to focus on me, "make sure you tell your boss the last voice I heard was you screaming like a little girl." I swung both my fists above my head, clasping them together like I was holding an axe handle. Aiming squarely for his temple and the knockout blow, I brought them down...

It was an act of desperation, the way both gloves wrapped around my vibro-smashers, but his hands managed to catch mine. Smirking at me through a split lip, Electro...I thought he'd try to push my gloves away, but instead, he tightly put his hands around mine, clasping them tightly.

"Nice gloves, Herman," he coughed. "Powered by electricity, right?"

Oh, crap.

I tried to yank my gloves away, but it was already too late. The gauge on the vibro-smasher on my right hand quickly ran down, green-to-red, skipping yellow entirely. The smirk became a full-blown smile as Electro sucked the juice from both my gauntlets, draining my dry in a matter of seconds. "Thanks for the power-up, Herman," he said, still clutching my hands in a grip, a grip made tighter by the voltage now running through him. "Your gloves pack more energy then I imagined." With a small cry of effort, Electro shoved me away from him, firing a charge from his hands at the same time. Like I had expected, it flowed right through the metal on my hands to run up my arms. The suit absorbed most of it, but I could feel the tingle from my fingers to my shoulders.

This was just before I felt the impact of the tile floor, as Electro's push caused me to fly backwards from him a few feet. I landed on my tailbone, still sitting up, as Electro quickly got to his feet. His face showed the effects of my assault, but his movements didn't betray any pain on his part. Both hands pointed towards me, and I tried to move away, but to no avail, as two bolts of lightning struck my chest. It dissipated over my torso, but it still stung like a bitch.

Ok, Herman...new plan. I just needed to come up with one...

Electro kicked a chair out of the way, coming towards me as I found myself scrambling backwards away from him. Every time I tried to get to my feet, Electro was too close to risk it. But I was running out of room...and every step Electro took, I could almost see the cloud of electricity beginning to swirl and collect around and across his body.

I finally had to risk it. I pushed up with my hands, trying to get to a standing position to do something...but, indeed, Electro was too close. He grabbed me by the side of my mask, easily pushing through the contact plates and their vibrations, and drove his knee into my face. This did bring me to a full and upright position, but all that bought me was a free punch from Electro, a roundhouse across my jaw. I spun around from the impact, slamming into the edge of a desk. I ended up sprawled across it, stars forming across my vision. Groaning, I tried to get back up, pushing up from the desk with my arms...

Electro slipped an arm under mine, and locked another around my neck. He squeezed tightly, ignoring the mini-explosion from my suit's defenses, locking in a chokehold. "You know, your suit's powered too, right?" I couldn't tell, but I knew that he was draining my contact plates of their electricity as he tried to choke the life out of me. I tried to grab at him with my hands, but he was just out of reach. "And..." he said after a few seconds, "now you're dry. And helpless."

He released the chokehold...and put a hand on the back of my mask, shoving me forward as he slammed my head off the surface of the desk. Without my contact plates to counter the impact, the world went white for a second as I took the full force of the attack. The quilted layers of my mask helped cushion the blow somewhat, but my thoughts were scrambled as Electro pulled me back up, and slammed my face down a second time. As he yanked me back up, I felt the wet trickle of blood beginning to leak from my nose. It was desperation that let me focus enough to throw an elbow back as Electro went for the desk slamming trifecta. I caught the side of his face with enough force that I slipped away from his grip. I needed to follow up, to take the opportunity to land a few shots of my own...even without power, smacking someone in the exposed face with a metal gauntlet still freaking' hurts...but my body wouldn't let me, demanding I take just a second or two to recover and let my brain unscramble.

Which was all the time Electro needed to elbow me in the ribs. I felt the faintest tingle at the impact, which did not bode for me. What also didn't bode well was Electro spinning me around. One of his hands went to my crotch...

No, this isn't going to turn into one of THOSE types of stories.

...and the other grabbed me by the back of my neck. I could make out the thin strands of electricity around his wrist and lower arm as he scooped me off my feet, holding me across his body for an instant, before slamming me onto the desk. The wood creaked under the impact as Electro drove me down, my entire body protesting in pain as every single pen, paper clip, knick-knack, and in one case, a pointed paper holder, jammed into my back. I may or may not have moaned in pain at the time, and I don't say this out of disjointed pride, but because Electro immediately, like lightning, jammed both his hands on my chest, driving me into the uncomfortable assortment of office goods.

"You had a good run, Herman," he said, smiling through his white teeth. "Time to shut it down." For an instant, lightning flashed around the yellow gloves pinning me to the desk, before 50,000 volts jolted through my entire body. Electro channeled all that power into my chest, my muscles involuntarily contracting as current passed through them. My fingers and toes clutched at the edges of the desk through my outfit as my back arched, pushing me further into his killing hands.

Being electrocuted ain't fun. Those little one-to-two second shocks you get from sticking your finger on an exposed wire isn't nothing compared to accidentally grabbing a car battery's contacts, and that ain't nothing compared to being struck by a bolt of electricity being tossed by a guy like Electro or Cardiac. Get hit by one of those and your entire body seizes up for a second as all the bioelectric connections fires at the same time. Your muscles spasm and your brain gets dopey as your nervous system attempts to reset.

So if you could be so kind as to imagine the kind of pain that having that type of electricity channeled through you from a never ending source of power...

And now that you know where I'm coming from, back to the action.

Electro's face held perverse joy as he pushed down on me. All the electricity he had generated was being put into this killing shot. A brief part of my brain wondered if electricity counted as fire with regards to putting a ghoul down for good, but then the rest of my brain that was functioning yelled "YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" My body was frozen, save for small spasms and twitching, as Electro poured it on.

My suit was what saved me. I may have added contact plates, a basic heads-up display, and a comms suite over the years, but at the very heart of my suit was layers upon layers of quilted fabric, rolled and tucked, over and over again, each layer tight against the next one, the cloth equivalent of folded steel. It was meant to absorb the vibrations from my blasts, and as an added side bonus, it acted as an insulated, from heat, cold, energy blasts...and volts of electricity. Instead of being concentrated on my heart and disrupting my circadian rhythms...and even as I'm being shocked, I'm wondering where the hell I know that word from...to give me a heart attack, the voltage was being spread out over my entire body as my suit absorbed it. It didn't catch all of it. Personally, it didn't feel like it was catching any of it. But, in the end, it caught enough of it, for a long enough period of time that either Electro ran out of juice, or just got frustrated. He pulled his hands away, and instantly, my body dropped to the desk. I had never been so happy to feel a bobblehead push into my spine as my muscles relaxed back to their natural state. I couldn't move a single limb, but I also wasn't acting like a capacitor anymore.

"Bah! It's this damn costume of yours, Herman." Electro sneered at me as I lay moaning softly on the desk as my body's pain receptors seemed to catch up to me at once. "It serves a purpose other than making you look like a pineapple, I guess. Fine, then. I'll have to pull that suit off and do this skin-to-skin."

Don't blame me, those are the words Electro used.

His hands went under my chin. I could feel his fingers pressing against my throat, digging into the non-powered fabric. "I know you can take your mask off, Herman. Just give me an inch of throat so I can bypass your armor and get right to the heart of the matter..."

Without power, my magnetically sealed suit was held together by spandex bands. If he found where they came together, all he had to do was channel electricity through one of his fingers and I'd be done for. I tried to lift my arm, telling it to slap his hand away before he found a weak point, but its response was "I just got run through with 50,000 volts, get another limb to do it." My other body parts responded in mind. I tried to turn away, lifting my chest, but after a weak attempt at that, Electro's free hand pinned me down. "Ah, ah, ah, Herman. Why can't you be different tonight and just lay down and die?"

Thick armor and his rubber gloves were saving me. I had never, ever, felt so helpless in my life. My body wasn't listening to what I said, my suit and weapons were dry, and someone was actively trying to kill me. This had to be it...all the stuff I did the past few days wouldn't mean jack, beyond an Internet fad, and that's if the world survived. Herman Schultz, the Shocker, dead at the hands of Electro. Died while trying to help a lady with diabetes...this wasn't how I imagined going out. How I died involved a lot more naked blondes. Hell, would I even be remembered? What good was a wake when everyone else on the planet's dying without one? That's how it was ending...with me dead and forgotten...

Oh, screw me, that better not be a tear rolling down my cheek.

No, wait...it's blood, probably from a cut on my forehead.

Even as I lay on the desk bemoaning my fate, though, I kept trying to tell my body to move. Maybe I had a complex, not to the level of Max's, but still, some kind of inferiority concern. No one told my body and its survival mechanism, though.

Electro was pushing just below my chin when my arm decided it was time to play. It only moved three inches in the direction I wanted it to, but I'll take it. I had to scream through my nervous system for my fingers to clench, and they sure as hell took their sweet time. But eventually, I had enough control back to ball my hand into a fist...

"Ah. There it is. Say good night, Her..."

I felt his glove on my bare skin for the briefest of instants, just before my body's fear response as imminent death kicked in, giving me a boatload of adrenaline.

With a cry, I swung my fist up. Well, it was more along the lines of swinging my arm up, and hoping the fist on the end would catch something. The motion was the very definition of "flailing," and I didn't even know if I was going to end up hitting Electro or miss by a mile.

For that brief moment, though, the luck of the capes was on the side of Herman Schultz. Electro was leaning over me slightly, smirking in triumph, when the metal edge of my gauntlet caught him mid-sentence, directly on the chin. I couldn't have aimed it better if I had tried, because it snapped his jaw shut and rocked his head backwards as I somehow managed to follow through with my punch. His hand jerked back, and he stumbled away from me, holding his chin. "Gah! Gahd dawit, at's my tonne," Electro said from behind his hand. As he pulled his glove away, I could see the blood trickling from inside his mouth, from where my blow had made him bite his tongue.

Adrenaline, luck, maybe a shot at pulling this off...or all three...managed to convince my re-responsive body to roll off the desk. I landed on my feet, bent over, my upper body supported by the desk as my legs slowly refound their footing. I was breathing heavy, aching all over, every damn nerve bundle calling out for a hug or a shot of morphine...

"Gonna kill you, Herman," Electro managed to spit out, still holding his mouth, the red blood a contrast against his yellow glove, his eyes shut through the pain.

"Well," I said, finding the strength to quip, "you've been trying all night, nice to know you're finally starting." Max turned to face me, his free hand curled into a ball even as he winced at the discomfort from his bit tongue. One good shot would probably end up taking me down again...

My hands found the edge of the desk. Somehow, I willed up the strength, using what bit of adrenaline was flying through my veins, to move the heavy piece of furniture. It scraped across the floor, resistant at first, but I fought against my protesting muscles and shoved the large piece of oak towards Electro. He looked up at the last second, eyes widening, as I let out a loud yell of triumph. His hands went to the edge of the incoming desk, trying to stop it. I put everything into a final shove...

The desk slammed into him at waist level. Electro let out a prominent "oof' at the impact...but I didn't stop. My feet kept moving, pushing the desk as far forward as I could. It scraped forward a couple more inches before coming to stop, unable to make any more progress...because Electro's body was blocking it.

The villain was trapped between the two desks, the furniture pushing into his waist from both sides. His hands were grabbing at the edge of the desk to try to push it away, but he couldn't quite get the leverage. Panting heavily, I bowed my head, exhausted at the effort. I had him pinned down, stuck between two heavy desks. It would only be a matter of time before he had enough power in his body to break free...I had to act fast. I couldn't get close enough to punch him, not without climbing on the desk and maybe letting Keller take another shot at me...

I looked down at the desk, trying to find something I could maybe smack him with. The chair was an option, but reaching across the desk with it wasn't feasible. Nothing else was within reach. The desk had made a fine weapon, but now...

Wait. No. The desk STILL was a weapon.

"Well, Max," I said, reaching down below the top of the desk. "It's just you...me..."

My hand found what I was looking for in the middle of the desk, and luckily for me, it was unlocked. Electro was still shoving and pushing futilely.

"...your balls..."

Slowly, I slid it out, opening the center drawer of the desk.

"...and this drawer."

I slammed the drawer shut, shoving it closed with as much force as I could manage. Immediately, the effects were noticeable, as the features of Electro's face that I could see under his mask took on a look of pain. His eyes rolled back slightly, and he pursed his lips as Electro's body wilted slightly from the sudden burst of pain brought about from me slamming the back of the drawer into his important bits.

"...owie," he squeaked.

Smiling under my mask, I yanked the drawer out, and then repeated the process, shoving the drawer into his balls. He yelped again, his hands bouncing against the edge of the desk as it was his turn to deal with agony running through his entire body.

"I'm impressed, Max," I said as I slid the desk drawer out for a third time. "I didn't know you actually had a set down there for this to work."

Wham!

"Screw...you..." His eyes were squeezed shut from the pain, hunched over slightly. "Let's see...how you like it!" Before I could react, his hands flared with electricity, drawing from an internal well. With a groan of effort, Electro lifted the desk by its edge, pushing it up and away from him. The drawer tilted out of my grasp as the furniture tilted towards me, the blotter already sliding towards the floor. I had plenty of time to move away, and I slid around to the right as the desk reached its tipping point. I heard a joyous cry from Electro as he succeeded in shoving the desk up and over. It landed on its side with a loud crash, echoing through the high ceilings of the bank.

Electro was recovering, a hand on his thigh, as I moved around the edge of his desk. I risked a quick look at the energy gauge on my gauntlets. My weapons were so devoid of power, the display didn't even show the red 'empty' line. Crap. I was hoping I could get some kind of recharge. Even a level one blast would come in handy right now. I had no choice but to close in on Electro, coming around the corner quickly, charging right for...

He backhanded me as I got close, a charged blow that staggered me back a few feet. Electro was upright now, and I could see more energy building around his body. It was faint, but it was there, and every volt he generated made it less likely I could keep fighting him off.

"Hey, Herman...tell me how this feels." He pointed at me with his index finger. Even though I know it happened instantaneously, my mind saw it in slow motion, as the tines of electricity shot from his finger, on a direct path towards my body. Specifically, my lower body. Pain I had never known in my life, sharp, direct, cut into my body as the bolt of lightning hit me right where I had punished Electro a few seconds ago.

"Oh...my groin," I said as I fall to my knees, both hands going to hold myself. Earlier, the voltage going through my body was spread out, painful, but even. This shot was a direct kick right to the balls, the piercing pain mixed with the throbbing sensation in my lower stomach. Christ, that hurt...

Electro stepped up and kicked me under my chin like he was playing for the World Cup. My body, at this point, gave out, and I fell to the floor, curling up slightly into a fetal position. Any adrenaline left in my body was long gone, and the pain...oh, the pain...

Right here, Electro probably could have finished me off. He wouldn't even have to blast or shock me. Max could have simply kicked the crap out of me, stomping away, and I'm willing to bet I would have croaked within a few minutes. Why he didn't, I'll never know. Maybe he wanted it to be dramatic. Maybe he wanted it to be a little more definitive. Or maybe he just wanted to throw me around some more before ending my life.

As I laid helpless on the floor, Electro raised a hand...and pointed it away from me, back towards the vault where his crew was working. His eyes, he kept locked on me, never wavering as I looked back at him through tear filled eyes...tears of pain, not sadness, I need to point out to maintain my rep. He slightly clenched his fist, and that's when I heard the cries of panic.

"Hey! Boss, the vault door's closing, and the light's..."

That's all I heard before the booming crash of the vault door slamming shut.

Oh, that was NOT good.


	18. Shocker vs Electro, Round 2

I knew what was happening. The only source of power Electro could suck juice from was the generator running the lights to his crew in the vault. He wasn't content with what his body could create...he was going to end this once and for all, and that generator could provide him with a lot of kicking-Herman's-ass potential. In the process of draining the generator dry, though, I'm willing to bet that Electro also pulled the residual energy out of the alarm panel he had shocked earlier. Hence, the vault thought it was experiencing another blackout, and the door's internal motor swung it closed again.

The good news? That meant the mooks, save Keller, were trapped in the vault, unable to come give their boss a hand.

The bad news? Well, Electro's about to give you a firsthand example. He stalked over to where I was laid out on the tile floor. His body crackled with electricity, swirling and shooting over his body. Under my suit, I could feel the hair on my arms stand on end as he bent down, grabbing be by the throat with one hand. "I love generators," Electro said as his fingers squeezed my neck. "They store so much power then they use. It's like chugging a 3 liter bottle of Mountain Dew and then downing a bunch of Pixie Dust. And the best part is..."

With no effort, Electro lifted me into the air. My legs immediately began to kick, trying to find purchase, as both hands clutched at his arm. The tip of his fingers dug into the side of my neck. Gasping for air, I pounded at his forearm, ignoring the tingles as my hands passed through the veil of electricity around him. He laughed, mocking my efforts, as he pulled me close, my face just inches from his, close enough for me to see the lightning bolts in his eyes.

"The best part, Herman, is that this is just a jump start. Blast all I want. I'll just make more."

Almost effortlessly, Electro turned around, bringing his arm up and over. His fingers released their grip at the top of his motion. With one arm, not breaking a sweat, the Villain of Voltage hurled me through the air like a javelin. I wasn't the most aerodynamic projectile, but Electro had enough on his throw to overcome any resistance I might have put up. The office area we had trashed passed quickly under me as I flew over the trail of destruction before I slammed into the window that Keller had shot up earlier.

And sailed right on through. And then through the one of the opposite side.

The first window shattered easily as, back first, I crashed through it, smacking into it near the top sending thick shards of safety glass to the floor of the hallway leading to the vault. But the impact didn't stop my flight. Even as the sound of glass breaking reached my ears, I slammed into the opposite pane of glass, which shattered under the force of Electro's throw. As I landed on the tile floor behind the row of teller windows, I bounced and skidded across the floor, landing in a heap near the back wall.

Ow.

Nothing seemed broken, I thought as I managed to sit up. One hand clutched at a fixture on the wall as I pulled myself up to my feet against the protest of my entire body. Shaking my head to clear the cobwebs, I caught a glimpse of bright lightning coming my direction. Electro was walking around the walls, heading to the vault hallway...and from there, back here to finish me off.

My gloves? Still empty. Electro had succeeded in sucking them completely dry. The front door was unguarded, but when I took a step in that direction, it was obvious I'd never make it in time before Electro blasted me down. I looked around, panic beginning to set in like it had that first night, when I was dealing with those zombies outside the Bar With No Name, the fear I had felt when I had thought I had killed the guy I shoved into the fire hydrant...

...

...

...oh, of course!

My scan of the area became more focused. The ceilings were too high, but the Federal American Bank was in an older, 19th century building, which meant that the odds were good that what I needed was nearby. And, it was. Specifically, the fixture I had used to get to my feet. I yanked the door open. It banged off the wall behind it, but I was already pulling the flat fabric out from where it had been packed inside. As Electro, not even bothering to look in my direction, stalked down the hallway, I turned the wheel at the end of the fabric. Relief flooded my thoughts as the fabric quickly ballooned, going from a flat coiled pile to a long tube.

Maxwell turned the corner. From where I stood, I could see the grin on his face as he probably entertained thoughts of frying me to a crisp. But under my mask, the smile on my face was grim and determined. I was about to finally level the playing feel. If this didn't put Electro down for good, at the very least, it'd sap away all the electricity he was stacking. And as beat up as I was...I was angry enough, in a fist fight, I'd kick Max's ass.

I put my back against the wall, planting my feet, and trying my best to brace my wrists. His grin turned a bit sour as Electro moved through the swinging half-door towards me. Yellow light poured from him, and the bolts of electricity shooting over him reminded me of moths going for a streetlamp. The guy was packing enough voltage to knock me out of my boots.

Good. It would make this that much more effective.

I can't believe I was about to say what I was about to say. I know I always bitched when Spider-Man laid a cheesy line on me, but over the past few nights, I've found one-liners slowly slipping into my vocabulary. Maybe that's the price of being a good guy...bad dialogue.

"Hey, Electro," I said as I aimed the brass nozzle at him, "guess what? You get to drink from THE FIRE HOSE!"

I pulled the lever back. The recoil almost shot the nozzle from my hands, but I managed to keep it steady despite my barking wrists. A high-pressure stream of water flew from the end of the fire hose towards Electro, and before he could dive or duck, it slammed into the center of his chest.

You know what happens when water hits electricity, kids. Short circuit.

All that voltage was about to go bye-bye.

Steam hissed from around Electro as I kept the stream focused on him. I felt like one of the Ghostbusters as I poured it on, every drop blowing the power from his body. I lost sight of him in the vapor that formed around his body, but I didn't divert from him, keeping the water aimed. My wrists were sore, and my legs ached from holding myself in place, but I wasn't taking a single chance I didn't have to. The more soaked Electro got, the better...

It shot up the stream of water at me. The speed that the liquid flew away from the nose didn't matter to the bolt of lightning doing its best impersonation of salmon swimming upstream. It flew up the water towards the brass nozzle in my hand. Before I could drop it, the nozzle conducted the electricity, and it flowed directly into my hands. On reflex, I let go of the fire hose, my hands shaking from the jolt. Without me to hold it steady, the nozzle whipped through the air...

...and conked me on the side of the head, smacking into my temple with the force of the shooting water. With bells ringing in my head, I fell backwards, sliding down the wall supporting me to end up sitting on the floor. The world went blurry, and I could barely make out anything. It was all a big blur. In front of me, the fire hose snaked and skittered across the floor, propelled by the water spraying from it as it clattered on the marble.

A bright yellow cloud made its way toward me. As it closed, I heard the crackling of energy mixed with the footsteps. I tried to raise a hand in defense, but my body seemed to finally be on the verge of quitting completely to go find another poor sucker to listen to. After all, I had gotten us into this mess...

The cloud took on green-and-yellow features as I heard the squeaking of the water wheel being turned. The fire nozzle stopped its dancing on the floor, and the fire house went from filled tube to layers of flat fabric. Hands soon grabbed me by the front of my uniform. I protested, weakly, as Electro, his form slowly coming into focus, lifted me and slammed me against the wall. His body still shone with power...and he didn't appear wet.

Damp, like he had just walked through a heavy fog. But he didn't show the telltale signs of being blasted with a high-pressure fire hose. His hands, holding my quilted armor in its fists, buzzed against my skin through the insulation. I looked into his eyes, which were almost completely yellow, flashing like a thunderstorm as he peered at me.

"How..." I found myself croaking. "...how did you...why didn't you..."

"Why didn't I short circuit?" Electro's smile held malice and delight as he explained had happened. "I've fallen for the water-and-power trick too many times, Shocker, to fall for it anymore. I'm packing enough electricity right now, all I had to do was redirect it to protect me. All that water, Herman, it vaporized before it even got close. You can thank the Rose for that one." The smile slowly faded, replaced now by anger, bereft of joy now as he hoisted me into the air. "Play time's over, Herman. You've been a tough little scrape, and to be honest, it's been fun. But I'm on a schedule here, and my guys are waiting in the vault. So..."

He pulled back, and slammed me into the wall just beside the fire house fixture. My back flared up at the impact as chips of sandstone colored plaster flew from around me.

"...why don't you be a good boy..."

Electro stepped back, and this time, he rammed me into the wall. I heard the telltale crack of brick at the impact.

"...and just..."

Now, with one hand, he pulled me back before hurling me into the wall, a fistful of my uniform the only thing holding us together. The masonry under the sandstone plaster was crumbling from his efforts. Electro pulled me back a final time, and with both hands, leaned backwards for maximum distance.

"...die!"

He shoved me forward, almost hurling me into the wall with both hands. My spine felt like it cracked in half at the impact...and then, I found myself falling backwards. Electro, still gripping me tightly, stumbled with me, losing his footing as gravity took over. The masonry broke down completely, 19th century concrete giving up the ghost as the impact from a charged Electro's assault, using me as an involuntary battering ram.

Luckily, the black marble floor broke my fall. And then I broke Electro's.

The sudden stumble had stunned Max, and he rolled off of me, letting go of my uniform even as his body still crackled. I rolled to the opposite side, grabbing onto a nearby object to steady myself. As I focused, I found myself staring at a brown-and-yellow mask, covered with plaster and scorched in several places. Behind that, I could make out the edges of a finely painted mural, showing an army on the march, stretching across the wall.

We had stumbled into the bathroom of the bank...probably the executive one, if the mural, the floor, and the black marble sinks were any indication. The only light came from the glow of Electro. Reflected by the mirror I was staring in, I could see him getting to his feet, and I tried to do the same. He was hopefully stunned by the...

No. He was quick, and as I stood up, his forearm wrapped around my neck. It squeezed tightly, cutting off my circulation, as Electro's other hand went back to my throat. "Damn it, Herman, you're making this tough on yourself!" I clutched at the forearm, trying to get some room to breathe, as Electro tried to find the seam in my costume. Visions of him using his hand as the cap on an electric chair to fry me danced in my head, and I put up as best a fight as I could. Gasping and wheezing for breath, I put a foot on the edge of the sink, and pushed backwards. We stumbled across the bathroom, twisting and turning as I tried to break free. He couldn't find the seam, but his death grip on my neck was starting to take its toll. Blackness was threatening to creep into the edges of my vision, and that would have been game over for me.

When we passed in front of the mural, it was my turn to use the wall to my advantage. I grabbed at his forearm with both of my hands, and after spinning him around, shoved backwards, slamming him into the painting. The first time, he kept his grip, but after two more attempts, I managed to break free. He cursed, rubbing at his back, as I stumbled forward, my hands coming to rest on the edge of the sink.

Breath flowed back into my lungs, but not quickly enough. In the mirror, I could see Electro ready to charge and finish me off, his yellow light and the red light of my energy gauge what I would die by...

...red light.

I had one charge. One level one blast in me.

Without thinking, I raised my fist, and brought it down on the edge of the sink, firing my blast as I did so. The sink cracked, thick pieces of black marble tumbling to the floor as the faucet fell away from the wall as I quickly stepped to the side. It wasn't a fire hose, but the pipe behind the faucet sprayed across the bathroom, hitting Electro.

I heard Max laughing as the water hit him. "Herman, come on, we just did this. You know this won't stop me."

"No, but this will."

And with every single bit of strength I could coax, drag, pull, and bribe from my body, I brought the piece of black marble up from the floor and into Electro's jaw.

I didn't have to hit him true, I just had to smack him. And I got him good. He wasn't expecting it, and, like an uppercut, I exploded from the floor and drove the piece of the sink into his face. His head snapped backwards, and he stumbled into the wall, arms askew as he tried to keep his balance. I could make out his yellow eyes, glazing over slightly. "Damn..." he muttered, and pushed off from the wall, coming for me again...

This time, my attack pinned his head against the marble and the mural. I put everything behind it, pivoting on my foot to smack his head against the wall. The surest way to put someone unconscious is to knock their head into something unmovable, and let physics to the rest. Using a heavy piece of masonry for the weapon doesn't hurt either.

The satisfying crunch of a broken nose greeted me, just before the "thwack" of Electro's head slamming into the wall. He bounced forward slightly, and his head turned to face me, yellow eyes still full of lightning...until his eyelids slid over them, and he fell forward, landing on the floor.

Unmoving.

I spent 30 seconds making sure he didn't move, before I dropped the tile onto the ground next to him with a loud clatter. Ok. Great. I felt like I had been through a meat grinder, and the trip home was going to an experience, and I had no idea how I was going to explain to Aleksei how I turned into Limpy McLimperson while he slept...

Forget all that. I won. Electro tried to kill me, and he should have, but I won. I beat him. Without my weapons. Just with every single piece of furniture and fixture the bank had.

I stumbled out into the teller area. My legs were fine, save for some slight limping, but my upper body probably had enough bruises to look like a map of the New York underground. I bent over the nearest teller window, groaning, as I tried to determine what my next move was going to be. First, I was going to go through every desk that was still intact and try to find some damn Tylenol...

Click.

"Don't move, Shocker," the high pitched voice of Keller said. "I don't know how you did it, but..."

Fwoosh.

Did I mention my other glove had a level one stored up as well?

Keller slid to the ground. I kicked the pistol he had been pointing at my head away from him before poking his fallen body with my boot. He lay, unmoving, as I looked around the bank we had turned into a battlefield. The windows were just starting to show the very beginnings of morning on Manhattan, the light from the sun escaping over the horizon and snaking through the concrete canyons. I could hear the cries of the soldiers in the vault as I observed the path of destruction Maxwell and I had made...

Ooooh. The teller window next to this one has a can of lollipops. Cherry, too. My favorite.

X

"You just going to leave us to die, Shocker?"

I took the cherry lollipop out of my mouth and glared at the tied-up Keller. "You know, I have a half a mind to just leave you here to get eaten. Especially you, Keller. You shot at me. Twice. You know how damn rude that is? I'm almost offended."

Oh, damn it. There they are again, the bad quips.

I'll blame those on the Vicodin, though. I had lucked out when the second desk I searched contained an orange bottle with several pills inside. They were the only reason I still had an upper body capable of moving. The bottle was tucked inside my suit...along with the several bottles of insulin.

Unbroken.

In all the running, in the slamming, and the throwing, and the shocking, and the blasting, the very thing that I had originally gone out for were still intact. I couldn't explain it, but maybe, just maybe, luck was starting to show me a permanent sense of favoritism, or karma was letting me cash in some chips from the past two nights of work.

"But I'm not offended enough. I don't kill people, Keller. That just ain't my style." I wrapped the last of the duct tape around Electro's wrists, nearly ten layers binding his hands together behind his body. "I'm gonna give you guys a chance. And I ain't even gonna take any of the stuff you guys came here for. As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to it all. All I want is to walk out of here and be left alone."

"Huh. You think Electro's gonna let that happen, Shocker?"

I looked down at Max. Blood ran from the mouth hole on his mask, and behind one of his eye slits, the socket was puffed up and turning a shade of black. "He ain't in any condition to put up a fight. And if he tries," I said, making sure my vibro-smashers were still showing a yellow charge, "he'll regret it."

"What about the big guy?" Keller sneered as he said this, trying to intimidate me...a guy who just beat the living crap out of Electro after getting the crap kicked out of him, who's walking around with armed weapons on his hands. He scared me about as much as a seven-year old girl with a cone of cotton candy. "You think he's gonna forget what you did?"

"He's got his gold, he's got his crew, and he's still got Electro. He doesn't have a reason to be mad at me." I hoped. If the guy got so worked up over me taking Tombstone's stash of goods, hopefully letting Electro and his bunch walk out of her with everything they had come for would be a sign of good faith. I wasn't in the mood, or the condition, for another fight. All I wanted to do was make sure, when Electro woke up, he'd have a chance to free Keller, who'd free himself, and then they'd free the guys still pounding away in the vault. And by then, my ass would be long gone.

I didn't have to do this. Electro had been ordered to kill me, and I was sorely tempted to return the favor. But...that wasn't me. I didn't care that the world was ending, I wasn't going to let it change who I fundamentally was. And that was someone who didn't murder.

Keller glared at me from where he was tied up. Using the fire hose, I had bound his unconscious body to one of the teller's chairs, wrapping his wrists and ankles up by threading the fabric through the legs and silts on the back. By the time he had woken up, I was already looking for the duct tape to tie up Max.

"If we're all tied up, Shocker, how the hell are we gonna get out of here?"

"Good question." With Electro bound tightly, I turned to face Keller. "Here's how this is gonna work, Keller. And I'm going to say this just once, so it's very important that you pay attention." I pointed to the counter. "That teller station has a letter opener. When Electro wakes up, he grabs the letter open brings it to you, and you slice the tape off his wrists. He frees you, and then he jolts the same place he jolted to open the vault earlier. Your buddies get let out, you finish the job you guys started, and you're all on our merry way."

"Why don't you just give me the letter opener now and let me saw my way out, huh?"

"Because I'm not an idiot, even if my brain probably looks like an egg in a frying pan right now," I shot back. "You got all that, Keller?"

"If he doesn't," a gravelly voice spoke slowly, "I do."

I couldn't believe it. On the ground behind me, Electro had opened his eyes. They were white, clear of any electricity. All the energy he had gathered had dissipated while he was unconscious, which is why I could tie him up without worrying about getting shocked.

"Damn, Max," I told him. "I guess I didn't hit you hard enough."

"Oh, no, you smacked me plenty," he groused. He scooted to a sitting position, groaning in pain. "I'm surprised you didn't crack a tooth with that sink." He stared at me now, without a trace of anger in his glare. "That was pretty impressive, Herman. I thought I almost had you where I wanted you."

With my opponent helpless...I don't know. I just felt like being honest since he wasn't a threat to me. "You almost did, Max. Whatever the Rose did for you, it's working. You just tried to use it against me."

"Yeah, well...business." A poor excuse, but one I understood completely. "So, that's it then? You walk out of here, leave us be, and that's that?"

I nodded. "Yeah, Max. That's that." I hobbled over to where he was laying, looking down on him with just a bit of pity. His boss was going to kick his ass, and I felt a little bad about that. All Max wanted was a bit of respect...but he tried to carve it out of my dead body, and I wasn't going to stand for that. "Tell your boss I don't want any trouble. Letting you guys walk out of here, as far as I'm concerned, is a sign of good faith on my part." I wanted to back my words up with some kind of tough talk, but when two guys just beat the crap out of each other, honesty and a complete lack of bull and bluff come naturally. "You got all that?"

"Yeah...yeah, Herman. I got it." Electro shifted slightly. "Just one favor, alright? Can you help me up before you go? You did a number on my legs and balls with the 'desk drawer' trick. Without my hands, I'm toast."

After a few seconds, I nodded. "Alright. Don't try anything, though. I'll blast you back into unconsciousness."

Electro coughed as he laughed. Carefully, keeping an eye on his hands behind his back, I helped the Villain of Voltage to his feet. I even went so far as to spin him around so his fingers could grip the edge of the letter opener before quickly backing away. "Thanks, Herman," he told me.

"Yeah," I said. There really wasn't anything else to say. Carefully, Electro stumbled towards where Keller was sitting. I beat feet the other way, backing through the swinging door towards the main entrance to the bank. I...I knew Electro probably wouldn't stab me in the back. But just in case, that's why I had tied his hands behind his back, so he couldn't throw lightning at me. Never hurts to be absolutely sure.

I kept my eye on the pair as Electro slowly made his way across the teller area. I was in the lobby, about to hit the door, when Max spoke up for the final time. "Don't consider this just an idle threat though, Herman. If my boss says to come after you again, I will. I know he'll be dead set..."

In the middle of his sentence, Electro's chest exploded.

I saw it before I heard it. One moment, he was talking, and an instant later, blood, lungs, and a shower of sparks filled the air. Some of it splattered on an instantly screaming Keller, but the rest fell behind Electro. He stepped backwards, staggering under the hammer blow that had shredded the front of his costume into a rag of spandex. He half-turned towards me, eyes wide with surprise, just moments before his body collapsed behind the teller's window.

The north window had shattered, high up on the wall, just under where the ceiling began. The sun was high enough now to provide backlight, and I saw Electro's murderer clear as day. He hung from the window by a harness, black hair cut close to his body. The red sighting laser swung through the air, cutting across the lobby to focus on me. I knew what that meant, and I knew what had happened to Electro was going to happen to me. But I had to stare. I couldn't believe it. After everything that had happened to me tonight...not this.

Not him.

I registered the white skull on black Kevlar just as the laser sight aligned on my forehead...


	19. The Last Guys In The World I Wanna See

If you're expecting me to take a time out here to explain who this guy was, this is all you need to know.

That's the Punisher.

He kills bad guys.

And he's going to kill me.

The shot from the assault rifle flew through the air, a 5.56 NATO round fired from an M4 carbine. From the way Electro's chest had exploded, the Punisher was using anti-personnel rounds, probably high explosive. Or maybe Electro's head packed enough electricity without being powered up that, given an outlet like a bullet hole, the shock of escaping power caused an explosion.

No time for discussion, Dr. Jones. Even as the red laser steadied on my head, I was diving to the side. An arrow of agony raced up my shoulder as I landed behind a wooden check stand. I heard the bullet strike the floor and ricochet towards the back wall, the chip in the floor was at the precise spot where, along the angle it was fired from, it would have passed through my brain and turned into watermelon. I could make out Keller's high pitched screaming and the rattling of the chair he was tied to as he struggled to get free.

Crap, crap, crap, crap! Not the Punisher...

Ok, Herman, focus, you can...

The panel next to my head splintered as the three-round burst passed through. I flinched to the side, away from the small explosion...where my shoulder had been, a second three-round burst disintegrated the wood, millimeters from tearing a hole in my armor.

"Oh, Christ, Christ, Mother Mary, someone get me the hell out of..." Keller's cries for mercy were cut off with a burst of gunfire, which was my exact cue to put my grand plan into action. Pushing to my feet, I sprinted as fast as I could for the wide open front door, forcing myself to run through my limp. As soon as I came into view of the window, a trail of bullets followed every step I took, small explosions and puffs of dust and stone chips in my wake. I didn't weave, I didn't juke, I didn't try to get fancy. I ran flat out towards for the street, hoping the same luck that kept the insulin safe in my pocket would keep me safe from the Punisher's bullets. My pumping arms had daggers being shoved into the sockets, and my legs protested, but the pants-crapping fear I was feeling was motivation enough for me to dive out the opening as gunshots riddled the frame, shattering the thick safety glass of the propped open door. I landed on the second step from the top, and proceeded to roll down the stairs. Each small landing was a stopover in physical agony as I hit every freaking' bruise I had on the way down. I managed to get to my feet about halfway down, rolling upright, and without breaking my motion, ran down the rest. I grabbed the stone pillar at the bottom and hung a hard left, still moving as fast as I could force my body as I sprinted down the street, hugging the buildings, towards where my Hummer was parked.

Holy crap. That was the Punisher. He just blew Electro away. And he tried to do the same to me.

When kids want to scare each other, they tell ghost stories. When criminals want to scare each other, they tell Punisher stories. There may not be very few hard and fast commandments in the criminal world, but there's definitely one rule to live by. "Thou Shalt Not Cross Paths With The Punisher, For He Shall Strike You Down No Matter Where Thou Chooseth To Hide." Right now, my only goal was to get the hell off my feet, behind the wheel of the Hummer, and high tail it back to TriBeCa. I'd take having to explain myself to an angry Rhino then the Punisher sniping at me any day of the week.

The sun was over the horizon now. The first real rays of light laid long shadows across the empty avenue as I ran, keeping close to the empty skyscrapers. My ears strained to her any sort of sound; a racing engine, a burst of gunfire, a loud explosion. How long would it take the Punisher to unsnap that harness and come after me? Hell, would he come...of course he'd come after me, what kind of stupid question was that, Herman? Move, move, move, if he's coming after you right now, the best bet is driving away before he can catch up.

I imagined him stepping out of the alley I was passing, carbine aimed at my chest. Sitting on a ledge above me, taking careful aim with a rifle. Maybe even just around the corner up ahead, foot just above the accelerator of his van, waiting for me to pop into view so he could run me over. Nightmare scenarios played in my head as I reached the block with the Walgreen's, each one involving me dying in a much more gruesome and horrifying manner. I was up to liquid nitrogen and a wrench by the time I saw the black Hummer, parked exactly where I had left it. For a second, relief flooded my senses. "Damn it, Herman, you ain't home yet," I told myself as I ran across the street...

So yeah, the fantasies about the horrible ways the Punisher could off me? In retrospect, they paled in comparison to the fact that, just by sticking my ass outside my warehouse, I was risking being eaten alive by the living dead. Even though I hadn't seen a zombie in a few hours, and my last encounter was with Electro and now the Punisher, those things were still out there. I was reminded of this fact as I closed in on the Hummer as I was thirty feet away.

I hadn't heard the moan in hours, so when the low-pitched noise grinded across my ears, all thoughts of the Punisher left my head and the worldwide threat reasserted itself. Immediately, I tensed up, my gloves coming up to the ready, scanning the area in front of me where the moan had originated. The space between me and the large black SUV was clear. Was it coming from behind the SUV? I quickly looked around, but nothing was shambling towards me. Where the hell...

Screw it. Unless the ghoul had somehow unlocked the SUV and climbed inside, I didn't care. Double timing it, my metal boots clicked off the asphalt as I crossed the abandoned street, one gauntlet ready to fire while my other hand fished in my suit's pocket for the SUV's keys. The moan got louder, though, as I approached the vehicle. Now, I could tell the moan was coming from right in front of me, but I still didn't see anyone or anything that wanted to eat me.

Ten feet away, and then I remembered the horror movie cliché I was probably going to walk right into. Coming to a stop, I ignored the dull pain in my thighs and crouched down to peer under the SUV.

Yep, just like I thought. The body was high enough off the ground for this trick. I could make out the outline of a zombie crawling underneath the Hummer, pulling itself towards me. Clever...if the ghoul was doing this on purpose. It was still clever even if he was just following some instinct. Here's a Hummer. It's abandoned...or is it? Something warm blooded could come back, something tasty. It had been waiting for me, probably "planning" to grab my ankle and sink its' teeth into my leg.

"Not this year, pal." I raised my gauntlet, and gave the zombie a level one from a distance of ten feet. My shoulder barked slightly at the recoil, but it wasn't anything too horrid. The form dropped to the asphalt, sprawling out on the ground...

...giving me a clear view of the block of plastique explosive attached to the bottom of the Hummer.

The detonator's light blinked green twice as I watched, before turning a solid red.

"Oh, cr..." I said as the Hummer exploded.

X

Something sharp poked at my chest as the car alarm blared in my head.

I didn't think such a thing was possible, but the clear blue sky above me wouldn't come into focus. I blinked my eyes to try...

Christ. Even closing my eyes hurt as it pulled the skin on my face. Blinking was going to be an exercise in fun.

Ok, let's sit up.

Ooof, that hurt. Whatever's poking in my chest...

My hand grabbed at my torso, and wrapped around something sharp and angular. Whatever it was, it had sliced through my armor, but didn't cut too deep into my skin. The black metal shimmered in my hand as I stared at it, before I tossed it to the side.

Ok, let's try sitting up again.

Chest is fine, but my back isn't participating in the festivities.

One more time, body, come on, work with me here.

I don't know how long it took, but the Hummer's chassis was still burning as I managed to get into a sitting position. Well, at least it wasn't a car alarm, because that would have been ringing the dinner bell as opposed to just grabbing their attention for a second. It was just the blood rushing through my brain that made noise.

The Hummer, needless to say, was ruined. The windows were blown out, and fire raged along the interior, burning the seat cushioning and carpeted floors. I could feel the heat from where I was...twenty? Thirty feet? The blast had blown me across the street a bit, but I wasn't...aside from the cut across my chest...seriously heard. My suit had, once again, saved me from the worst of the blast...and maybe some of the shrapnel.

There went my ride. That car bomb...it had to be set by the Punisher. Maybe it could have been set by the flying figure, but plastique was definitely Frank Castle's style. That's maybe why no shots had been fired at me since running out of the bank. He had been counting on the car bomb to take me out. Right now, I'm willing to bet the Punisher had heard the explosion and was counting me as KIA.

Groaning, I got to my feet. My ride was gone. There weren't any others cars in sight. I had an upper body that felt like Rhino had used it as a punching bag, my legs weren't exactly up for running a marathon, and I had at least 10 city blocks that, while apparently cleared by the Army, still held the threat of zombie attack.

"This day just started," I muttered as I started to walk, "and already it can't get any worse."

One of these times, I swear, I'll learn not to tempt fate.

Before I knew it, I was knocked off my feet again. Instead of being knocked backwards, however, I was instead yanked into the air, feet first. Something had wrapped itself tightly around my ankles, pulling them together and preventing me from moving my legs. The act of being tossed into the air, while not slamming into anything, caused protests of pain to be delivered from my body to my brain by express mail. The blood rushed to my head as I hung upside down, slowly starting to swing from side-to-side. Before I could react, I felt my arms, hanging below my head, being pulled together in the same manner my legs had been. I glanced down...well, up...trying to figure out what had happened to me. But I knew. Damn it, I knew, I had been this same situation countless times before. I groaned to myself as I saw the webbing around my feet, tying me to a streetlamp, leaving me to sway in the wind.

"Oh, come on...you gotta be kidding me."

"No joke here, Shocker...just, as usual, your poor choice of name."

He crouched on a nearby parking meter, just out of reach, the wide white eye-slots of his mask staring at me. "You turn that Hummer into a Pinto?"

"Screw you, Spider-Man," I spat.

X

"How wude," the wall-crawler responded. "What's the problem, Herman? We're just two guys hanging out."

God. The last thing I needed right now was the poor quips and wise-ass remarks of freaking' Spider-Man. Getting shot was almost a preferable option. "Shouldn't you be out there getting a zombie kitten out of a tree," I shot back.

"Oh, come on, Herman, that's the best you can do? Zombie kittens? That's the dumbest thing I've heard since watching Norman Osborn speak on television?"  
"Well, considering I almost blew up from a car bomb and just spent the last hour going around the horn a few times with Electro, I'll take your advice and leave the stupid witticisms to you, Spidey."

He cocked his head to the side. "Electro? Where?"

I answered honestly. "Dead. The Punisher shot him after we finished fighting, down at the Federal American Bank a few blocks over."

"The Punisher? What the..."

Christ. The blood was rushing to my head, I was sore and tired, and there weren't any blondes masseuses in sight to rub away the worst of the pain. Somehow, I found my tough guy voice through the weariness. "Spider-Man, I ain't in the damn mood for Twenty Questions. WHAT do you want?"

He thankfully responded in kind with an honest tone. "I just wanted to ask you a question or two, Herman. But now it's up to four or five."

Damn it. This was JUST what I needed right now.

"I don't have a choice, huh, Spider-Man?"

He shook his head. "Not really. You'll have to cancel any and all pressing engagements."

"Fine," I admitted. "We can talk, on one condition. It's you and I on solid ground, and not with me dangling above the street like a piñata. Something happens to you, and I end up dinner for a bunch of zombies because you trussed me up like a turkey. Find us someplace safe, and I'll talk to you."

"Alright, Shocker. No funny business, though." He leapt from the parking meter before pulling me down from the streetlamp. With practiced ease, Spider-Man tossed me over his shoulder, holding me tightly with one hand, as his other hand shot a line of webbing towards a nearby building. One good tug, and then the two of us were airborne...

Look, I've flown through the air before, but never quite like this, webbed up and helpless, at the mercy of my greatest opponent. If he wanted to drop me right now, I'd splatter on the streets like a turkey thrown from a helicopter. The experience was...if it had been a carnival ride out at Coney Island, it would have been fun. As of right now...the rumors that I screamed somewhat at swinging through the air might not be exaggerated, let's just leave it at that.

The street pulled away, the burning Hummer still blazing, as Spider-Man took the two of us to a nearby skyscraper. In one fluid motion, we landed on a small patio on what was probably the tenth floor of the building. It sat on the corner, bordered by small shrubberies on two sides and on the other two sides by the glass walls of the building. Two small trashcans, filled with sand, sat on either side of the door leading into the building, the surface of the sand littered with cigarette butts.

"This'll do," I told Spider-Man.

"Yeah, it ain't the Plaza, though." He easily tore the webbing from my wrists and ankles, freeing me.

"Why did you web me up," I asked him. "You could have just asked me if we could talk," I said, rubbing my wrists.

"Because, Herman, you would have probably blasted me the moment you saw me." I had to nod in agreement at that statement. "Pull up a pew, Herman. We got some things to discuss."

"Check the door," I told him. "Just in case." As Spider-Man crossed the patio to pull on the double-doors leading to the smoking area, my grateful body sank to the floor. Using the shrubbery box to hold myself up, I extended both legs, flexing the toes to get circulation going. The phrase "ridden hard and put away wet" came to mind, without all the innuendo that usually went along with it.

"Doors are locked," Spider-Man said. He walked over to where I sat, and crouched down in his signature style, on the tips of his feet, hands resting in the center. "We should be able to talk for a while."

"Good." I grabbed my mask by the latex band, and pulled it up over my head. The unfiltered air felt wonderful in my lungs as I breathed deep through my mouth. My head felt back against the planter. "Wallcrawler, you have no idea the night I just had..."

"Looking at your face, Herman, I can believe it. You look like you told Titania she had thunder thighs and she did something about it," he responded. Was that concern? It definitely wasn't sarcasm...

"How bad," I asked him.

"Two black eyes, a cut on your forehead, and blood all over the left side of your face. Damn, Shocker...Electro did all that to you?" The sun was coming over the streets now, and I got a good look at Spider-Man's outfit. It was torn in several places, scraps of fabric hanging from his arm and mask. Dark stains covered the front. No bite marks, but plenty of battle damage. Whatever he had been up to, he may have been in the thick of it just like I had been.

"Dillon was trying to kill me, Spider-Man. His boss told him to off me."

"Really," he said, and there was the skepticism. "In the bank? Let me guess, you two guys quibbled over the cut of the robbery and it turned violent?"

I shook my head, ignoring the spur in my neck. "Ain't like that, webhead. I wasn't in on any job. His boss told Electro over the phone to kill me, and he did his damndest to try. I'm still trying to figure out how the hell I pulled it off."

"Uh huh. And who's this boss figure? You get a name?"

"I wish. Electro wouldn't tell me..."

Spider-Man was quiet for a few blessed seconds. "And just how did you end up at the bank then, Herman? Did Electro's goons find you and force you to join him at gunpoint?"

"Actually," I chuckled, "that's exactly how it went down."

"Damn it, He..."

"No, Spider-Man," I interrupted, spitting my words out at him. "How about this? Unless you're in a hurry, let me tell you what happened so you stop interrupting me. You're the one who wanted to talk...you got the time?"

With a weary sigh, Spider-Man nodded. "Ok, Herman. Spin your tale."

I started with Anne back at the warehouse. And I filled in the blanks; the Hummer stolen from Tombstone, the insulin, the flying form, Electro, and finally, the Punisher. Hearing the words come from my mouth, I realized, even in a world filled with flying gods and the walking dead, just how strange and over-the-top everything was coming across.

"...and then, after the Hummer blew up," I concluded, "you webbed me and pulled me up here. And now, we're all caught up."

"Huh. That's one hell of a story, Herman. And, strangely, I believe every single word of it." Spider-Man rubbed the side of his face, and I thought I heard him yawn softly. "So the Punisher did it, just killed Electro in cold blood. Maybe Castle's decided it's open season on baddies."

"Well that's a damn nice thought," I groused.

"This boss," Spider-Man said, shifting topics, "the guy Electro said he was working for. Do you have any idea who it could be? Any clues, anything you might have heard?"

I shrugged my shoulders carefully. "Damned if I know, webhead. I have no clue. He might have been lying...but if it wasn't Tombstone, and it wasn't Kingpin... thought it might be the Hood, but it ain't his style to off potential employees without resorting to bribery first," I explained. "The Hood would have at least offered me a job before trying to get me killed. But I still think it's tied to that thing I saw flying around earlier, the thing that led me to the bank. Have you seen anything like that around the city the past few nights?"

"I've seen some strange stuff, Herman, but nothing like that," Spider-Man answered. "I've been up and down the island, and aside from the corpses walking around like they own the place...nothing."

"It doesn't seem that bad," I replied. One hand motioned to the empty streets beyond the railings. "I only saw one or two zombies down this way. The first night was worse, they seemed to be coming out of the damn walls."

"Down here...yeah, the Army's been through here. Up near the Park though..." He was quiet for a second, crouched in place. "More civilians, more residents, and more zombies. I spent most of the past few days up there helping move people into the park, and most of that time is spent fighting off the creepy crawlies."

"Don't tell me you're enforcing Osborn's Order for everyone to leave their homes..."

He raised a hand. "Hey, I ain't taking orders from Norman Osborn. I'm taking them from Iron Man, and he says to do what Osborn's suggesting. That's what we get for letting the government take the Avengers over." His shoulders slumped, and for a second, this little twerp who repeatedly whipped my ass looked so small. "It's a mess, Herman. No bull. Every time a zombie gets dropped, two more show up, and add to that all the superheroes who think dropping a zombie is murder..."

"I thought the same thing, Spider-Man," I found myself saying. "Rhino asked me that very question. As far as I'm concerned though, zombies are biological robots, no personality, all motor."

"Yeah...that ain't a bad way to put it, Shocker. I just saw them as corpses that need to be put back the ground..."

After a few seconds of awkward silence, I spoke up. "So, what's the deal, Spider-Man? You said we needed to talk...don't tell me you searched all over Manhattan looking for me. I'll file a stalking complaint."

"Herman, could you please leave the jokes to me? You don't have enough practice to pull them off," he quipped...

Oh, God, I was smirking. Smirking was halfway to a smile. I just smirked at one of Spider-Man's quips. Damn it.

"No, I wanted to talk to you, but I was down here looking for someone else." He motioned towards the north, indicating the island. "Carnage is apparently on the loose. Someone heard a rumor that he was seen down near the Battery, but when I checked it out, all I found was bupkis. I was swinging north when I heard the explosion and saw you hobbling away."

"Carnage? I thought the Sentry killed him when Electro broke everyone out of the Raft a few months ago?"

Spider-Man chuckled darkly. "It's a symbiote. You don't kill them, Herman, you just pray you can lock them up somewhere. There have been reports of him all over the city, and I'm checking them out, just in case."

"Great...the last thing we need is Carnage running around..." I paused in mid-thought, the gears grinding in my head as I shifted from "just great" to "we could be screwed." "Spider-Man...what if Carnage gets bitten? You'd have an undead symbiote swinging around if the odds were bad..."

"That's exactly why I'm trying to find him, Herman," Spider-Man answered. "So far, we know that only humans are affected by whatever's making the dead get up and walk, but that symbiote's been bounded to humans for so long...well, I'm gonna have nightmares this evening. How about you?"

"If all goes well, I plan to sleep for 48 hours, Spider-Man."

"Lucky bastard. I'd go for sleep right now...I was hoping that flying form you mentioned earlier was Carnage. It doesn't sound like him, though. If it was Carnage, odds are he would have tried to flay your face off instead of swooping around like a flying squirrel."

I closed my eyes and chuckled at a though that came into my head. "Maybe we'll get lucky, and Carnage and the Punisher will run into each other. You'd be able to find them both from the city block they'd level."

"Or the mushroom cloud from the suitcase nuke Castle could use," Spider-Man quipped. "I never met a man like the Punisher who believed that there wasn't any kill like overkill." The wall-crawler stood up now, looking down at me, arms crossed. "So, you actually went out to get insulin for someone you're hiding back at your hideout. It doesn't rank as the weirdest thing going in the world right now, but it's in my personal top ten."

"Like I said, Spider-Man, she's a damn good cook. Look at it like this," I explained, "maybe I wanted a good last meal before I croak. I don't fancy going out with a bunch of beef-flavored Ramen on my tongue. Besides, if I didn't go out, Rhino would have, and I figured one guy could sneak in, sneak out, and be back before anyone really noticed." I thought of the Hummer's burning frame and laughed. "Christ, was I wrong on that one."

"So it's you, Rhino, and the two guys and girl from the 7-11? "

"And Anne. The woman I'm getting the insulin for. Oh," I added, "and her husband Pete. And Boomerang too, Fred's hiding out with us..."

He held up a gloved red-and-blue hand. "Whoa whoa whoa, Herman! How many people did you yank off the streets? "

It hurt even trying to count using all ten fingers. "Me, Aleksei, Fred, Robert, Ashley, Pete, Anne, Ernesto, Mark, and Sally. No offense, but I figured my hideout was a better place to lay low then Central freaking' Park."

Spider-Man...I couldn't actually tell if he was or not, but it sure felt like he was staring right at me. "So it's you three...and seven civilians? What's...you have to have an angle, Herman. You and altruism were never partners."

It was just a little spark of anger, but I held it down. "You know...you're right, I ain't the charitable type, Spider-Man. But I saw Nick Fury take down the Wrecker. I saw those scientists eating human flesh. I heard the screams of the guy in the car when those things jumped all over him. And it all happened just a few blocks from where Fred, Aleksei, and I were watching it all on my widescreen, eating steaks and knocking back a few cold ones. Four blocks, webhead. My angle was a mix of shame and...those three, they needed help. If it wasn't for me and Aleksei, they'd be dead, not dead-dead, but the special brand of dead that's walking around right now. So yeah...altruism." I laughed, wincing, as I pointed at my face. "This is what being nice got me, an ass-kicking by Electro, shot at by the Punisher, being threatened by Hawkeye, and a run-in with Wolverine." That last one was probably the scariest out of all of them.

"Altruism," Spider-Man spoke again. "I believe you, Shocker, but I don't believe you. You always tried to make these plans and grand schemes to break into banks and crack safes, plans a seven year old could see through. And now? I'm honestly supposed to believe you're doing these things out of the kindness of your heart just because..."

"I don't care." The spark was being fanned, a pit of glowing embers in my soul. Who the hell was he? Ok, fine, I'm sure Spider-Man was doing his part to save the citizens of New York City. Well and freaking' good for him. I wasn't allowed to do my part? Alright, I could see he had a point, considering I was selling bottled water when the Hulk came to down a few months back. This...this was different. "Spider-Man, if you want to keep on hating me, I don't care, because right now, I still loathe you. You don't want to think I'm capable of actually doing something nice, that's fine with me. Especially since, even if they're going through Iron Man, you're taking orders from Norman Osborn."

"Whoa, that's completely..."  
"It's not even CLOSE to being different, Spider-Man. Norman Osborn is a madman, a psychopath, a murderer!" Well, there were the flames of anger now. Too late to stop, however, so I decided I might as well ride the wave. "The man's sanity is kept tethered by a bunch of pills, and he's in charge of everything, and you're listening to him. I'm a thug who has delusions of adequacy, but even though I've never killed anyone in my life, Osborn's word is better than mine. Whatever, Spider-Man. If you heroes decide, when push comes to shove, the measure of a man's trustworthiness is based on how many bodies he's put in the ground before he becomes a good guy, well, last I saw the Punisher, he was three blocks down and looking to plug me. I'm sure he'll make a wonderful addition to the Avengers."

"So far off the mark, Herman, I might as well call you Big Wheel." Spider-Man's body was tense, one fist clenched. "I hate taking any type of direction from Osborn. I'd rather bite down on a metal file and have someone yank it right out of my teeth then listen to him. But he's been right so far, and he's the guy who stepped up and took charge when the rest of the government fell apart and got eaten. You don't think guys like Iron Man and Reed Richards aren't keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't do something like open the gates and let the zombies flood Central Park? Give us some credit, Herman, we're not all stupid."  
That point, I conceded...and then I took the wide open target Spider-Man had handed me. "So you're giving Osborn a chance then?"

"Herman, I'm not averse to second chan...ces..."

Pause.

"Ah, hell."

The smile on my face, seeing Spider-Man flounder for a moment, almost made the ass-kickings I had taken over the past few days well worth it. "Guess that doesn't apply to me though, huh?"

He shook his head. "I'm blaming it on exhaustion, Herman."

I took the one little victory. "If this was any other night, we'd be having this conversation while trying to beat the stuffing out of one another. Right now, though...the rules got rewritten, Spider-Man. The way I see it, this is humanity fighting for survival. Those guys out there, those zombies, you can't make them give up, you can't make them put down their guns, and you can't just beat the crap out of them until you can't fight anymore." My mouth felt dry, and I licked my split lower lip, ignoring the minor jolt of discomfort. "It ain't capes vs. cowls anymore. We're getting down to the line, man. Three nights ago, Wolverine, Rhino, and I would have fought, even though he would have wiped the street with both of us. Now...this is bigger than any petty arguments you and I have, Spider-Man. If I saw you being attacked...I'd help you. I'd like to think I would, at any rate."

"So what you're saying, Herman, is we need to put aside our differences and work together to beat back the undead?"

"Close enough, yeah."

"Kind of like how I'm swallowing my hate of Norman Osborn and giving him a chance?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried to respond again. Nothing.

"Ah, hell."

"Welcome to my world," Spider-Man replied...without sarcasm. He looked to the east, down the avenue. The sun was up now, just clearing the horizon, beginning to glint off of the windows along the street...and a zombie stood behind the double doors, staring at the two of us. The three-piece stockbroker's suit was torn all along its front, and red gore stained the area around its mouth. It didn't bang the glass, but just swayed slightly at the sight of the two costumed morsel. "Well, think that's my cue, Herman, before the dinner bell rings. I gotta get going, at least check in with SHIELD and let them know what's happening."

"I ain't gonna hold you up," I groaned as I tried to stand up...and failed. "Ahhh," I said, as I sank back to the patio. My legs had fallen asleep during our conversation. I began to massage the blood back into them, getting the circulation going. "I'll tell you this, Spider-Man. I'm going back in my hole and I don't plan on sticking my head back out unless it's absolutely necessary. I have enough responsibility on my plate right now, I can't handle anymore...especially if the Punisher's out there."

Spider-Man nodded. "Herman, I won't blame you. I don't know what's harder, keeping an eye on seven civilians, or keeping an eye on Rhino and Boomerang."

Another laugh. Damn it. "I keep Aleksei fed, and I keep Boomerang drunk. Everything else falls into place."

Spider-Man chuckled under his mask...and then, he extended me his hand. I stared at it for a second, processing this brand spanking new gesture, before sticking out my gauntlet. He winced slightly as we clasped hands, probably expecting my suit's contact panels to go off, as he easily helped me to my feet. My lower body felt much better as blood began to pump through my legs again. I nodded my thanks before pulling my mask back over my head, tucking it back into the latex loop on my neck. My suit didn't recharge like my gloves did, and I'd have to break out the backup when I got back to the warehouse...after a shower. A long, hot, scalding shower. And lots and lots of Vicodin.

The wall-crawler studied me for a second. "Where you heading, Shocker? You aren't in any condition to go anywhere. You...I can't believe I'm about to offer this...you want a lift?"

"A lift? The whole swinging through the air thing?" I turned to look over my shoulder towards the East River. The shape I was in, I probably couldn't manage a city block, let alone the six or seven I was from home. And that was before considering the walking dead. A ride through the air would probably get me back in...20 minutes? Without running into any zombies?

"You better not drop me," I warned him. Swallowing my pride, I stepped forward. "You know if someone sees me with you, Spider-Man, it's gonna shoot my street cred in the foot," I said as he let me put my arms around his waist.

"What street cred? Squeeze tight, Herman." As I clutched at his chest, the hero webbed my hands together, bonding me to his costume. "And you're worried? If Wonder Man sees me, he's gonna never let me live this down..."

X

"Hey," Spider-Man said, walking towards the warehouse's edge, "wasn't this the Tinkerer's old hideout?"

"Yeah," I responded, "but you can't beat the location. Just don't tell anyone, alright?"

"Actually, Herman...I know a guy who's been looking for you, an old friend of ours. I'm gonna send him down this way when he gets a chance, alright?"

"Webhead..."

"Trust me." The hero turned away, crouching slightly. "You'll want to talk to this guy. Take care, Shocker." And as I watched, he sprung into the air, easily making the roof of the cannery across the way.

"That's what Electro told me about his boss," I yelled, trying to get in the final word as he sprung to the next rooftop. He heard me. I knew he heard me.

7:30 am, and it promised to be a warm autumn day. The streets, normally filled with rush hour traffic, were instead occupied by a military caravan and a few stray ghouls. Maybe Osborn's plan had worked, because ever since we had rescued Mark and Sally from their apartment and hightailed it back here, I don't remember seeing a large number of undead. Granted, I spent most of the trip over here with my eyes closed, praying that Spider-Man's webbing would hold and not choose this time of all times to fall apart and send me screaming to the street. But Lower Manhattan seemed pretty clear.

Following that line of logic, though, the gunfire and activity up near Central Park meant that the living dead were packed around the green space in the heart of New York City, trying to get inside.

As I stumbled towards the roof access door, I glanced at the city spreading out around my warehouse. The west, across the river, saw Newark's northern suburbs on fire, as smoke and flames rose from all the urban renewal that had been going on since the turn of the century. I couldn't make out I-95 through the morning haze, still thick enough to block my view without commuter traffic distilling the mist back into water and pollution.

I could make out some smoldering fires to the east, near the Brooklyn Bridge, but nothing on the scale of what was happening in Newark. Up north, though, where I could just make out the skyscrapers of Midtown, smoke from diesel generators and gunfire mixed in the air to drift into the sky. Lower Manhattan was a comparative oasis compared to the surrounding areas of the metro region. I made a note to get an update from Bobby...just what was going on everywhere else?

New York City was burning, not as badly as I had thought, but still, it smoldered under the feet of the walking dead. And this was with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the heavy hitters doing their best to stem the tide. How was the rest of the Initiative holding up? Were they keeping the wolves at bay in Miami, Dallas, Seattle? And beyond that, in London, Moscow, Tokyo...

God, I'm thinking too much. I just want to lie down, take some prescription painkillers, and take a nap. I had been on the go for almost 24 hours, with hardly any rest. Rhino had conked out way before I had, and...

Aleksei. Oh, he was going to kill me, I knew it.

I took off my mask, and opened the door to the warehouse. "I'm back," I called out loudly down the white metal stairs.

"Herman!" That was Fred's voice, mixed in with several steps of footsteps. I closed and locked the warehouse door, and took a step down...

Ow, ow, ow, ow. Stairs were NOT going to be my friend. I turned, and slowly side-stepped my way down to the first landing. "Sorry I took so long. Cross-town traffic was a bitch."

"At least tell me you're in one piece, mate."

"Barely. I had...a run-in with someone." I emerged into the warehouse proper, shuffling my way down the steps one at a top. It would be my luck to trip, fall, and break my neck to end this screwed up evening. At the bottom of the steps, Boomerang, out of costume in a black t-shirt and blue jeans, and Robert were standing, looking up at me with concern. Everyone else was scattered across the warehouse, all of them looking up at me...

...including Aleksei. He was also out of his suit, but still, he cut a granite figure, arms crossed as he stood, like a marble sculpture, at the bottom of the stairs in black shorts and a white muscle t-shirt.

"Run-in? Herman, from the way you're limping, it looks like several someones," Robert said. "And why are you coming in from the roof? Where's the Hummer?"

I waved a hand, gripping the railing with the other. "I'll explain it when I reach the bottom, ok?"

"Mate, you want me to fly up and grab you? You're really limping along like a three-legged dog."

"Nah. It looks worse than it is," I lied. Aleksei's face was etched in stone...angry, bitter, ready-to-punch-my-head off stone, easily noticeable at 100 feet. A small Band-Aid rested on his cheek, covering the cut he had gotten earlier. He never said a word, not once asking about me, as I limped my way down to the bottom of the stairs to the warehouse floor. My legs felt like my upper arms as I finally stepped foot on the stone floor. One hand still held onto the railing as I gingerly reached up and pulled my mask off from over my head. "God, it's good..."

"Oh, sweet Jesus, Herman. Did you run into, the Thing?" Fred and Robert winced as they got a good look at my face. Even Aleksei's face softened a bit as he saw the number that had been done on me. "Who the hell did all this to you?"

"Electro," I replied. "Max tried to kill me..."

"Kill you?" Aleksei almost shoved his way past Fred. His anger was still there, but it had been misdirected, away from me towards the deceased Maxwell Dillon.

"Hold up a second." Robert spoke up, stepping forward to where I was standing. "It sounds like you had a hell of a morning, Herman, but first things first. You got the insulin, right?"

Smiling weakly with triumph, I reached into my suit's pocket, and produced the small bottles. "Here. Hopefully those will be enough to last us for a while. How the hell they survived the beating I took is a damn miracle."

"Aleksei," Robert said, handing the bottles over to my friend, "take these to Anne, and then get some icepacks from the freezer. Herman looks like five miles of bad road, let's get him down and comfortable before we all get distracted." To my surprised, Aleksei nodded. The vials looked so small in his hands as he walked them over to the kitchen, when Anne and Peter were watching the proceedings. I could see them deflate with relief, their tension leaving, as they saw the familiar bottles in their colleague's hands.

"Fred, help me get Herman to bed..."

"No," I said as both of them moved to take me by the shoulders. "The futon. I prefer recovering on the futon, Robert."

"You sure?" I nodded, and the three of us hobbled over to the entertainment area. Ashley whistled from where she was playing with Sally and Mark, and I responded with my best smile. At least I wasn't missing a tooth...

The twin TV's were still playing their signals, I saw as the two guys helped me sit on the soft cushion of the futon. The government signal was showing a two-star Army general, discussing how the military's evacuation procedures into the major cities were coming along. The Versus signal showed a grainy video of a man, holding a two-by-four, bashing in the head of a zombie, as two kids cowered behind him. Bewildered, I asked "they haven't taken Spike TV off the air yet?"

"They've tried," Robert answered. "Apparently, Spike TV keeps finding a new channel each time. Osborn's even talked about it, how the 'pirate TV station is spreading fear and misinformation.' It's also the only channel that's showing someone how to survive without government intervention."

"Damn, mate. Your suit's more messed up then I've ever bloody seen." Boomerang pointed to the pock marks, black bits of Hummer, that were embedded in the quilted fabric, along with the minor tear that revealed several layers of fabric underneath. "Electro did all this? What the hell did you say to piss him off this much?" After removing my gauntlets, I carefully unsnapped the torso piece of my outfit, and pulled it off. Even as I threw the shirt on the ground, Boomerang was giving a low whistle. "Mate...you look like someone left you out on the grill too long."

You could make out the red imprints where Electro had run the current into my chest, outlined by a line of freshly scabbed over skin. Thin lines of crimson ran along my nerves, spreading towards the limbs of my bodies. The only contrast to the red was the dark blue and brown bruises that splotched along my chest.

"Damn," I whispered as I got a look at my chest for the first time. How...all Electro had were a split lip and a bloody nose. How the hell did I take all this? And more importantly, how the hell did I walk away? Seeing the bruises and wounds on my body...the pain finally decided to show up. Oh, it had been there more of the time, hiding in the back, just chilling in the yard, but now that I've finally seen what was inflicted upon me by the events of the evening, my body finally decided that a complete and utter collapse. How many times have you seen a superhero or a villain get the utter crap kicked out of them on TV, but when the time comes to give the morale building interview to the bubble headed bleach blonde reporter, they're standing tall and talking like that don't have a single ounce of discomfort anywhere in their body? Well, I'll tell you the truth. Once you get behind closed doors, and it's just you? That pain reveals itself, because you can let your guard down and not worry about your street cred or pride getting wounded. Well, right now, seeing the damage Electro had done to me...denial wasn't in the cards anymore.

It was a dull pain, without any throbbing or sharpness, but it quickly ran through my entire body, from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head. My body collapsed back into the futon, muscles going completely slack. Even that slight motion caused me to wince from sinking a few inches into the couch cushions. "Ow."

"You need some painkillers, mate..."

I motioned to my shirt on the ground. "Check my pockets. I got some Vicodin," I groaned.

"Vicodin? Screw that Mickey Mouse stuff, Herman." Boomerang was on his feet, and walking towards where his uniform was laid out on the ground. "Got something a lot better."

"Hope it ain't morphine...then again, I kind of hope it is."

"Here, Herman. Lie down, I'll get your boots off." Kind words from Aleksei, as he handed the icepacks to Robert and knelt down on the floor. "I'll grab you a pillow too when I can."

Slowly, I turned in place. Lying down sounded like a wonderful idea right about now, better then booze or sex. "You don't have to play nursemaid, Aleksei."

He took one of my metal boots, and gently started to unsnap it. "Yeah, I do. I want you at least capable of getting a running start when I whip your ass later, Herman. Going outside alone...you trying to get yourself killed?"

"I didn't want to wake you." I cried out as he pulled the boot off, the blood flow causing my ankle to throb.

"I can sleep anytime," he growled. "Keeping your ass alive is more important than a few z's, and you should know that."

"Ok. Next time I tangle with Electro, I promise, you can be there," I white-lied.

Robert helped to arrange the ice packs on the worst parts of me. The freezing first-aid shocked me at first, but soon gave me literal cold comfort. By the time Rhino had gotten my other boot off, Fred was towering over me. "Here," he said, leaning down. "Take two of these. They'll do you a world of good." Two small red caplets rested in his palm. "It'll help knock out the pain."

I trusted Fred enough to take them without question. He also had a bottle of Deer Park water, which helped wash down the caplets. I lay back on the pillow, slowly trying to shift my shoulders. "Where did you get..."

Like fighting Cloak, the darkness crashed over me without warning. One moment, I was asking Boomerang where he had gotten the meds he had gotten me, the next, my eyes had slammed shut. I could hear myself trying to ask him, but soon, that got cut off too. Within a matter of seconds, my body had shut down, exhaustion catching up with me in an instant.


	20. PlayerPawn

Ever been so utterly exhausted, so completely wiped out, so totally drained of energy, that you sleep right on through? No waking up, rolling over, and going back to bed? No getting up to take a leak and crawling back under the covers?

No dreaming?

I wasn't that lucky.

It's weird talking about this now...I know I was dreaming, but at the time, I kinda didn't, but I did. If you can make sense of the last sentence, then you know where I'm coming from. If you can't, then just assume I'm telling you about this dream post-fact...which I am...wait. Ah, damn it, let's just move on.

The sky above Times Square was on fire.

At street level, the city was abandoned. Wearing my full costume, I turned in place, slowly looking around the Crossroads of the World. The neon signs, a never-ending parade of electronic advertisements and commercials, were cold and lifeless. The streetlights at the junction of Seventh Avenue and Broadway were dark, and from where I stood, not a single car was in sight. The asphalt stretched off into the distance, empty of automobiles, or people. Even the air was motionless, without any hint of a breeze.

I knew not to call out. I was the only person left alive in New York City. Calling out would have served no purpose but to draw attention to myself from them. The buildings around me...ABC Studios, the Orion, hell, even the unfinished Bank of America tower. They were packed. Behind the locked security doors, the grated lobbies, the sealed loading docks, they waited. I couldn't see them, but one noise from me, one misstep, and they'd all come pouring out into the street. Even the rooftops weren't safe. That's where the fires were, burning bright and turning the sky above me red with flame and smoke. The corpses had crawled and stumbled to the tops of the buildings, even as the soldiers kept following Osborn's Order, throwing every zombie they killed on to the fire even as they were overrun by the undead wave. The smoke overhead would soon be all that was left of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.

My feet started moving of their own accord. The steps of my metal boots on the street were muffled, like I was hearing them through cotton stuffed into my ears. I walked down the middle of Seventh Avenue, heading northbound. There was only one place to head, and my subconscious was taking me there.

It was the silence that bothered me. New York never slept. No matter what time of night you were walking...a car screeching past, a hero and a criminal going at it, a hustler on the corner catching late night drunks stumbling home from the bar and suckering them into a three-card monte game, or even a hot dog guy, doing the same thing for the last call crowd. Even during the times when the city had been evacuated, you could still hear something going down a few blocks over, some stubborn guy refusing to listen to the authorities, the very thing that helped define what being a New Yorker was all about. The only sound was my muted footsteps softly thumping the pavement as I headed up towards the Seventh Avenue entrance towards Central Park, passing Carnegie Hall, the proud narrow bricks rising about the street. No music would ever be played there again.

As I walked the final block, I could make out the barricades. Thick, interlocking crowd control devices, invented by Reed Richards to be lighter then plastic individually but as strong as steel once joined together, ran perpendicular to Seventh Avenue down West 59th Street. This is where the undead had pushed and prodded, trying to defeat a design by the smartest man in the world, primordial hunger vs. genius. Directly in front of me, where Artisan's Gate stood, the barricades were stacked outward, projecting out from the neat white line. Buggies used to pick up tourists here to give them a short tour of the park. Now, thick steel plates sat on rails, acting like a sliding door, giving those inside Central Park egress to the outside. The plates were apart, wide open, giving my feet easy access to carry me into the park proper. I looked around as I walked, trying to catch a glimpse of something that showed human beings had been here. A dropped rifle, a patch of a SHIELD outfit, discarded webbing, maybe an abandoned cell phone.

Nothing.

As soon as I stepped foot across the sidewalk, putting it down on the premises of Central Park, a loud crunching sound ripped at my ears, slicing through the "cotton" and causing me to freeze. My first thought was hoping that no one else heard that, even as the noise echoed back down Seventh Avenue and across the park in front of me. After a few seconds of being perfectly still, I looked down at what I caused the loud noise. Dry leaves were scattered over the brown grass of Central Park, mixed in with dead branches fallen from gray, leafless trees. As far as I could see, the normally green expanse of parkland was covered with dead vegetation.

It sounded like bones being broken as I continued into the park. My feet were my driver, taking me wherever my dream wanted me to go. Each step scraped across my eardrum, crunching and snapping with my forward motions. The noise, at least, didn't seem to be drawing attention. The trees were bare of leaves. Skeletal limbs arced over me, motionless with the lack of wind, as I walked on the debris. I felt...I wasn't panicking, or screaming to wake up, or quaking. But I wasn't calm, either. Apprehensive...but curious. There you go. My feet had a destination in mind for me, and I was just along for the ride.

After a few minutes, I found myself turning, bearing in on my destination. We came out of the trees into a clearing, a small sitting area next to a red-and-white house, octagon in shape. Several stone tables had been carved and set into the ground, 8 x 8 grids painted and emblazoned on the tops. The Chess and Checkers house. During the year, anyone could bring their own pieces and play a game. In the summers, the city even had teachers on hand to show kids the ins and outs of the game. Now, no one sat at the tables...but one table was already set up, white pieces across from black pieces at the table closest to the actual house. By now, I was moving of my own accord, and of course, my subconscious proved just how well it knew me as I moved right for the table. My footsteps were normal again, no cotton, no leaves, just metal on stone.

The pieces were carved out of ivory and onyx, with such skill that they wouldn't have felt out of place in a museum. I bent down to take a closer look at them. The white pieces...I knew the King immediately, simply by virtue of the round shield with a white star clutched to its chest. The queen, the big busted blonde from the press conference so many days and words ago. The bishops, a hammer-wielding God of Thunder. A man of iron as the rooks. And a black knight on horseback as the white's pieces. In front of them, spread out eight abreast...

...me.

Eight carvings of me, in Shocker regalia, as the pawns.

That hit a nerve.

Biting my lip in my dream, I looked over at the black pieces...and eight carvings of Spider-Man. The rooks were Aleksei in full stride. With an arm cocked back, holding a shatterang, Fred was the knights. James, Speed Demon, arms crossed with cocky attitude, as the bishops. The queen?

Me.

That hit a nerve, too.

And the king...could there be any doubt? Even as I studied the piece, I heard the whine of the glider, and the high-pitched cackle coming from right behind me. I turned around, knowing full well what waited for me. Hovering just above the ground, the jetwash shimmering in the air, the Green Goblin was the spitting image of the onyx king, down to the jawline and high-tipped ears of his mask.

"You can be the pawn, Herman...or you can be at my right hand," I heard him say. "The question you need to ask yourself isn't whether or not your fledging sense of morality is worth turning down power and glory. The question is...do you really want to make an enemy of me, Herman?"

Pause.

"Do you?"

A hand suddenly clasped down on my shoulder, gripping tightly. I couldn't turn around as strong, gray armored fingers digging into my skin. Now, my body was frozen, my feet refusing to budge, as a deep, rumbling moan reached my ears, stone grinding on stone. The moan was soon overwhelmed by the laughter of the Green Goblin, piercing my ears. I twitched, trying to move, but it was too late, as the teeth of my friend bit into the soft flesh behind my neck...

X

I didn't wake up screaming, at least.

My eyes shot open, and I turned my face to look behind me, giving myself a close-up of the blue futon cushion. The familiar piece of furniture helped me come to grips with the fact that I was, blessedly, back in the waking world. I rolled onto my side, stretching my arms out from underneath the gray blanket someone had thrown over top of me. The two sets of televisions were still on, the volume low and the big one showing a first-aid tent overflowing with refugees, with a subtitle reading "GRANT PARK, CHICAGO." The other one showed what appeared to be a riot in progress, with police in riot armor battling an angry mob. Chinese characters were prevalent, and underneath those, a translation for guys like me and most of the world who didn't know Cantonese...or Mandarin, reading "CHENGDU, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA."

Nice to see that the world was still going to hell even while I was unconscious.

My limbs were still stiff as I swung my legs down to the floor, draping the blanket over my shoulders. In the course of my sleep, someone had taken my pants off, leaving me in just my boxers. I rubbed at my eyes, the cottonmouth taste of the just-awoken in my mouth. Hmm...do zombies wake up with cottonmouth when they reanimate...ah, hell, that was a lovely thought. Nothing like waking up when your mind's still sorting out your dreams. Sometimes, they lead to flashes of inspiration, and other times, well, you get what just happened.

"Hey! You're awake!" Ashley smiled with pleasant surprise as she walked up from the kitchen area. She held a green ceramic plate with a sandwich and a pile of potato chips stacked on top, along with a bottle of water. "How are you feeling," she asked as she sat down in a nearby chair, balancing the plate on her thighs.

"Stiff," I answered. "What time is it?"

"About nine o'clock," Ashley answered.

Almost twelve hours unconscious. Damn. Slowly, I raised my left arm, pre-cringing at the feeling of pain that was probably going to shoot through a shoulder socket that hadn't been worked over in...

...the pain didn't come. My left shoulder was a little sore from being slept on, but the bolts of pain I was expecting didn't flash at all. Same for my right shoulder, once I tested it out. And not even a single complaint coming from my lower body as I pressed both feet against the floor. When I looked down at my bare chest, I saw that the red marks from Electro's current, and the black-and-blue reminders from our hand-to-hand? Gone. Not a single mark, scab, cut, or bruise. "The hell," I wondered as I studied my torso.

Then, I heard laughter. The deep, rumbling laugh of Aleksei, mixed with the rapid-fire chuckles of Fred...and a giggle somewhere in between, low, but gleeful. It reminded me of a Wall Street broker playing around with his new Blackberry. But the laughter wasn't coming from nearby. The warehouse itself was devoid of movement. Save for Ashley, I didn't see anyone else awake. Blankets were scattered on the floor nearby, and the crew of civilians were conked right out it looked like. Even Bobby, absent from the computer and instead curled up with a pillow, was grabbing a nap. "People decided to follow your example," Ashley said with a slight tease in her voice. "Everyone's been on edge for so long...well, your nap precedent just set everyone else down the same path."  
"Uh huh," I said, confused as now, I heard voice. Definitely Aleksei's, and a new voice, somewhat distorted by...I didn't know what the hell by. "Why aren't you asleep," I asked.

"I woke up about half an hour ago, actually, when your other friend showed up." She took a bite of the sandwich (turkey and mayo) while I processed what she said. "Fred and Aleksei grabbed a case of beer and headed up to the roof to meet him. They told me to tell you when you woke up to go join them."

"My other...my other friend? Who the hell...James?" Ashley cocked her head at the unfamiliar name. "You'd know him as Speed Demon," I suggested.

"To be honest, I didn't get a good look at him. He just stuck his head in the skylight..."

She pointed upwards. The sounds of conversation were coming in through an open skylight in the roof. One of the skylights that I had made impossible to open from the outside unless you had a key.

"...and next thing I knew, Fred and Aleksei were telling me I was in charge and to, and I'm quoting here, 'send Herman's ass upstairs once he wakes up.'" She smiled, and handed me the open bottle of water. "So, I'd suggest going to see them. It sounds like they're having a blast."  
"Yeah. I hate to miss a party." I stood up, the blanket wrapped around me to retain some modesty. My legs easily, and without protest, carried me to my bedroom. Mark and Sally were comfortably asleep atop my covers, with Radar clutched to Sally's chest. I quietly grabbed a pair of sweatpants and an Empire State t-shirt. After changing, I put the gray blanket over top of the two kids. With a wave to Ashley, I headed for the steps up to the roof. The freedom of movement was confusing, but well welcomed as I climbed without effort.

"...and that's when I bought the horse a prostitute!"

I could hear the laughter at Boomerang's joke before I opened the door. The sky was lit up, aglow from the fires still burning across the river in Jersey. On Manhattan proper, I could make out the telltale smoke of bonfires reaching up the West Side Highway, and in the distance, a building was on fire in the Upper West Side. The stench of burning material filled my nose, but the breeze from the Hudson helped clear the worst of it away, making it an annoyance rather than a hindrance.

Fred saw me first. He stood up from the lawn chair, raising a can of Budweiser in my direction. "Herman! Glad you're awake," he said with a huge smile on his face. "Come on, mate, you're just in time to help us get plastered."

Aleksei turned to look over his shoulder, as his broad back was facing the doorway. He grinned as I walked towards him. If he was angry with me, the guy was doing a damn good job hiding it. "About you woke up, Herman. It was getting tough, being in charge all day."

"Like hell you were in charge," Fred replied good naturedly. "Hey, mate, grab Herman a beer. Herman, grab a seat." One foot tapped a lawn chair that had been set up just for me. Sure, the city was burning around me...but the very act of being offered a brew? Hell, that was normal, and right now, in my confusion at being pain-free, I'll take it.

I walked over, clearing Aleksei enough to see just who Fred had been referring to. I could understand, now, why Ashley didn't quite recognize my friend, and indeed, this guy was my friend, wearing a brand spanking new outfit. Just seeing him, alive, in one piece, and raiding my beer, brought a huge smile to my face. I quickly closed the distance as my friend opened up the beer cooler and pulled out a cold can. He gently underhanded to me from his seat. In one smooth motion, I caught it, and popped the tab, ignoring the white foam that poured out. "Jesus, what is that, your fifth suit of power armor? You go through designs faster than Susan Storm goes through hairstyles."

MACH-IV (MACH-V?), aka the Beetle, aka Abner Jenkins, smirked as he saluted me with his own can of beer. "Still the fourth iteration, but you know me, Herman, always tinkering, always patching."

X

"So the pimp looks at me, and I swear to God, he says 'Ese, you don't get it...some clients, they're already paying five, six times normal rates. As long as you get a ball gag in her...or his...mouth, they can get as rough as they want with the merchandise!'"

"Ah, Christ, Abner, that's just bloody disgusting..." Fred realized what he said, and, groaning, put his face in his palm. "Pun unintended."

"You're kidding me," I said after taking a sip of beer to act as brain bleach. "Abner, you gotta be kidding. That's just wrong on every single conceivable level."

Abner shook his head slowly. "God, Herman, I wish I was kidding. He got off lucky, though...the guy was starting to make me an offer before Songbird clocked him one. If he had finished his pitch, she probably would have dropped him in the Atlantic."

"Why...why would someone want to bang a zombie?" Poor Aleksei. He wasn't drunk enough for this conversation...none of us were, really. But Rhino was trying to process the information, and wasn't really creative enough to play it off. "That's nasty, and who knows what kinds of disease those things carry?"

"Aleksei," Abner said, leaning forward and slapping the big guy on his knee, one of the only people on the planet who could get away with doing that, "you'd be surprised what kind of sick and twisted lusts people out there have. To them, it's just necrophilia where the corpse fights back."

Aleksei's face twisted as he pondered that concept. "Ew," he finally said after a few moments of contemplation. "People are sick."

"How the hell did we get on this topic of conversation again," I asked.

"We're all on our third beer, Herman...including you. Nice catching up." Abner crumpled the can in his hand, and dropped in on the rooftop before pulling another from the cooler. He sighed, leaning back and looking up at what stars were visible through the haze. "What a mess," he mumbled. "I thought it was bad during the Registration thing. This just blows it all out of the water."

"Well, at least you're keeping your sense of humor," I snarked out of concern. Abner was always the type to push forward, keep shoving, never slow down until the job's done. He wasn't rash, but a planner like me. But when anything went down, Abner was first in and last out. He never gave anything less than 100% percent. Maybe that's why, a few years ago, he got out of the criminal racket and went legit with the rest of the Thunderbolts, trading the green-and-purple power armor of the Beetle for the silver and black of Mach-One. From what I've seen, he's done about as well as a reformed super villain can. He's one of the few people I know who can hang with the heroes and still has cred with the bad guys. He may not come to the birthday parties anymore, but Abner won't arrest us and throw us in the Vault for loitering either. "How you holding up, Abner?"

I knew those eyes, fighting off sleep with caffeine and pure willpower. I've had those eyes a few times. "I've been going non-stop since SHIELD put us all on alert," he answered. "I've slept maybe an hour at most, been slamming black coffee and Pop-Tarts, and flying all over the city trying to help everyone. Just...I needed a break. Just a few hours to decompress and let someone else deal with things. When we heard that you were alive and well, and holed up down here in TriBeCa, they need a volunteer to check in on you...and I volunteered."

"Hey, Abner...you're not here to take us all in, right?" Aleksei squeezed his empty beer can, flattening it before dropping the pancaked can onto the roof to join the others. "You're not here to drag us all up to Central Park, are you?"

"Actually..." Abner chuckled a bit, wiping his mouth as he laughed. "...we've been told, directly from Norman Osborn, that you guys are an illegal gathering, and with the combined firepower the three of you hold, sending anyone down here to fight you and 'rescue,'" he said, using airquotes, "the citizens you guys are holding hostage would be a waste of resources. So pretty much, we're supposed to ignore you and let you guys just wither on the vine until you come to your senses and join everyone else up in Central Park."

"Wow. Gotta love Osborn, a real humanitarian, that guy. Hey, mate," Fred inquired, "how's the guy holding up? I mean, I keep thinking he's gonna snap any minute, but when I see him on the news...well, he's holding up better then Nixon ever did under pressure."  
Abner chose his next words carefully. "The best way to put it...some guys thrive under pressure. Osborn's apparently one of those guys. He hasn't snapped, or done anything off-the-wall. His orders...people grumble about them, but they make sense. But everyone's keeping an eye on him. Spider-Man just figured you'd want to hear that from someone other than him, Herman."

I cringed. I figured that Abner was the guy Spider-Man had sent to check in on me, and I'll give the wall crawler points for good sense in choosing who he did. The problem was, I hadn't explained what the hell had happened to me that morning, with Electro, the Punisher, and Spider-Man, to Fred and Aleksei. Right now, all they heard was 'Spider-Man.' The looks on their faces as they stared at me...well, I knew that look very well. And I quickly put up my hands to both of them, trying to hold it off at the pass. "Now, wait, I can explain, guys..."

"Spider-Man, Herman? I swear, mate, if you sold us out..."

"Oh, no, Fred, it ain't like that at all," I countered. "I ran into him earlier this morning, after the whole...look, just let me start at the beginning, ok? It's a long story, and it'll all make sense at the end, alright? I promise."

Aleksei was still glaring at me, and Fred rubbed his chin as he contemplated my offer. "You know, Herman, if it was anyone else but you...Spider-Man. Christ. Ok, mate. Spin."

"Fine. Someone hand me another beer first..."

X

"...and that's when I passed out." I finished the beer, and leaned back in my chair, letting the can fall to the roof to join the other empties. And for one of the few times in my life, I had the pure, unadulterated joy of knocking Fred Myers speechless. Around "And then Electro tried to kill me," Fred had gone quiet. He stayed in his lawn chair, sipping at his beer, not saying a word. Abner and Aleksei had been quiet too, but they weren't as prone to jump in as Fred usually was. By the time I wrapped everything up, the only sounds were that of a dying city; sirens, gunfire, and burning buildings. Maybe dying's a little harsh, but right now, I was seeing damn little to convince me to go the other way.

"Damn," Abner finally said, breaking the silence. "That's a hell of a story, Herman. Electro trying to kill you, I didn't think he had it in him. Poor Max. We could have used a guy like him right about now. He didn't seem to kick your ass too badly, though. I don't see any bruises or burns, and you're moving around no problem."

"Yeah...about that." I looked over at the still-quiet Fred. "I was a Picasso when I came home. Fred slipped me some pills, and twelve hours later, I'm as right as rain. Fred, what the hell did you give me?"

"You complaining, mate?" He cracked open his sixth beer of the evening, still speaking without a slur in his voice. "Last of a bunch I got from Hammer Industries. Experimental recovery pills. Hammer was sick of paying medical and hospital bills for all his employees who got their ass kicked, so he had his bunch come up with a miracle pill to act like instant first-aid. I've had those for, maybe a year now? From what I can tell, it's a mix of HGH and stem cells. Won't fix a bone fracture or repair a torn tendon, but works wonders for general, all-around beatings."

"You...you slipped me experimental drugs?"

"Hey, they did the job, didn't they? Besides, I've been taking them for a year, and when was the last time you saw me limping around like I had gone a few rounds?"

"Sometime in the next ten minutes," I groused.

"Neutral corners, guys." Abner put out a hand to both of us as he spoke. "I'm just glad you're in one piece, Herman. Man...so the Punisher killed Electro." He shook his head. "That explains a few things," Abner said, turning to look all of us in the eye. "Ok, what I'm about to say? You can't spill it to anyone else..."

Pause.

"The hell am I kidding? Alright, I haven't seen anything myself, but I picked up some scuttlebutt from around SHIELD HQ. Apparently, some of the other guys have been finding dead supervillains all over the city. And I don't mean they turned into zombies. I mean, heads blown off dead. High caliber weaponry, one shot, one kill. People figured the Punisher was behind it...guess you just confirmed it, Herman."

Great. Forgive me if I didn't feel overjoyed. "Who else bought it?"

"Piledriver," Abner said. He started to count off on his fingers. "He was the first one they found. Styx and Stone, laid out on the street in Hell's Kitchen. Zombies were munching on them when Falcon flew over the bodies. Bushwhacker, shot in the head and burned to a crisp. Leap-Frog..."

"Leap-Frog?" Fred gave a strangled laugh at that name. "You're kidding me. Punisher actually took the time to kill Leap-Frog? Christ...why in the name of all that's holy would he waste a bullet on him?"

"What's stopping him?"

Fred and Abner turned to look at me as I spoke. I was slouched back into my chair, chewing on my lower lip. "Think about it. The good guys are out saving as many people as they can. No one's going to get in his way...and any super villain worth his salt is going to do the right thing and run as fast as they can from Castle if he shows up. Which means they'll die in public...how's looting? Arson?"

Abner shrugged. "There're dead people walking around trying to eat everyone. The smart ones are behind locked doors...unless...you think the Punisher's taking care of business?"

"He doesn't have to really worry about civilian casualties if everyone's off the streets," Fred chimed in. "Wow, mate...you might have dodged a bullet, pin intended this time." He raised a beer at me in mock salute.

I know I've bitched before about not being considered an 'elite' villain. Hell, when he was still alive, Stilt-Man snagged more "Fox News Alerts" then I did. Maybe being second-string didn't give you all the money, power, and broads you wanted...but it kept me off the radar of a guy like the Punisher. Why waste time on me, a safecracker, when there was, for lack of a better term, better prey out there?

Now, though...a guy like Leap-Frog probably dead at the hands of Punisher? If he'd hunt down and off a C-list guy like Leap-Frog, there ain't no stopping the Punisher from hunting down and doing the same thing to me. Earlier, maybe I had just been a case of 'wrong place, wrong time.' Now, though...did I just make the Punisher's "to do" list?

Aleksei, during all this, had quietly pulled another beer from the cooler. He slowly pulled himself out of the double-wide, reinforced lawn chair, and, standing up, popped the can's tab with one massive thumb. "Guys...we owe Max a drink. Maybe he tried to kill Herman...but he was one of us."

After a few moments of silence, Fred nodded...and I followed a second later. Ok, yeah, the guy tried to off me, and came damn close to succeeding. Once upon a time, though, he had been a partner in the Sinister Six, and a drinking buddy in bygone days. I'd like to think, before everything that happened over the past few days had gone down, Max would have done the same thing for me at my wake.

Abner grabbed a fresh beer for the three of us, and handed them out to everyone. "I feel weird doing this...I didn't get along with the guy. But dying at the hands of Frank Castle...that's not the way to go. Herman, you cool with this?"  
I shrugged. "Yeah...yeah, I am. Maxwell was one of us, no matter how me and him ended up. If he was alive, I'd smack him the next time I saw him...but Aleksei's right. We owe him this much."

"Maxwell Dillon," Fred said, hoisting his beer.

"Electro," Aleksei chimed in, the lid of his can peeking out over his fist.

"The Villain of Voltage," Abner added.

"Man...Max, wherever you end up, I hope you get the chance to rest in peace." I held my beer up, and we all touched cans on the roof of my warehouse hideout.

X

"So...that YouTube video with you and Rhino..."

"Ah, man. Did you have to bring that up?"

"Hell yeah, I did." Abner was smirking at me as he spoke. "What the hell were you thinking? I figured a smart guy like you would have gotten the hell out of Dodge the second the balloon went up."

I shrugged. "Where the hell else was I going to go? Didn't have a car big enough for Aleksei, don't know how to drive a boat, and didn't know what the hell was going on. By the time I was smart enough to figure out that I needed to barricade myself with a bunch of supplies...well," I said, waving a hand to include the entire warehouse, "I had an extended family."

"Just...never took you for the actively heroic type," Abner said over a cup of Anne's coffee. We were sitting at the "dining room" table now, a pot of sobering coffee shared between the two of us. He was taking it black, while I added sugar to mine to help gulp it down. Aleksei and Fred had given us privacy, at Abner's request. The pair sat in the living room area, absorbed in the sights and sounds coming from the two flatscreen TV's. "The smart plan would have been to just wait."

"I know, oh, do I know. But, like I've said to other people, I saw Robert, Ashley, and Bobby in trouble...and I had to go for it. What the hell kind of human being would I have been if I just sat here getting drunk while someone got murdered a few blocks away?" It was getting easier and easier to say. And now, I was starting to believe I believed it, and wasn't just giving lip service to the idea of morality. "And you know how it is. Once you have one refugee...you just have to collect the whole set."

Abner nodded "Hawkeye was PISSED when she showed back up, Herman. I mean, trash can kicking pissed. You embarrassed her on national television..."

"Forget her," I said, waving a dismissive hand. "I told her I was on a rescue mission, and she kept insisting I had some grand plan involving hostages."

"In her defense...you've taken hostages before."

"Ok, yeah, but...you see...wait, this is different..."

Now Abner waved a hand. "Forget it, man. Water under the bridge. Besides, a little humility might do her some good. She ain't the first Hawkeye by a long shot." He settled back in his chair, blowing on the rim of the cup. "Man, this is good coffee.."

"Aleksei's fault. He insisted we bring Peter and Anne in...then, when we went to get supplies from Walgreen's, we picked up Mark and Sally. And now, after a run-in with the Punisher, I'm done." I motioned to the sealed and welded loading dock door. "We haven't seen a zombie down here yet, and no one's come knocking. I'm out of the exploration business. My ass is plopped down, waiting for it all to blow over or end the world. Either way, I'm fine right here. I did my part for humanity. No offense to you, Abner...but heroics just ain't my bag. The right thing got me almost killed, more times than I can count."

He took a slow, brief sip of coffee. "I'm not blaming you, Herman. You did your part, and you're right. You kept all these people safe, after rescuing them. You brought them into your home, gave them shelter, food, and medicine. What the hell am I supposed to say? You didn't do enough? I'm in a suit of power armor that can withstand a zombie bite. You're in a quilt. No offense to you, Herman."

"None taken," I responded. "So, you're not going to say anything about how me being here violates Osborn's Order?"

"I see a non-functioning warehouse," Abner responded. "And like I said earlier, moving you would involve a fight with the Shocker, Boomerang, and Rhino. That would require reinforcements. But, wouldn't you know, in the heat of things, I just keep forgetting to ask people for help. And they seem to keep forgetting to ask me..." He smiled, a wry grin that I knew very well from the former Beetle. "We've left behind as many people as we've moved to the Park. If someone's set and secure, we mark it down and move on to come back later. If it's a family in a rundown tenement, they get moved. Osborn hasn't said anything to Cap or Iron Man..."

"Cap? So you're on a first name basis?"

"Yeah, yeah..." He studied me as I downed half the cup of coffee in one strong, eye-opening gulp. "So, you're done with your responsibilities as a leader of the community?"

"What community? Hell, Boomerang and Robert pretty much run things in here, Robert the practical stuff, Boomerang the social activities. No need to mess up the power structure in this team."

"Not that, Herman...I mean, everything else. The greater community as a whole."

"What, the city? Hawkeye took a shot at me and Spider-Man took convincing that I had some sort of credibility. Maybe once upon a time, that'd get me elected Mayor, but not anymore."

Abner was staring at me now, openly confused. "You...wait. You mean, you haven't...you don't know?"

"Know what?" I sounded puzzled as well. "What? Did I win some kind of contest and become new leader of the Thunderbolts?"

Abner was quiet for a few seconds, his hand on his chin, and his finger tapping his lips. "You seen YouTube lately?"

"Oh, come on..."

"No, seriously. The website's been running nonstop since everything started. Your video's one of the most popular ones on there...but there are other videos too, Herman."

"Yeah, I've seen some of those, like that Max guy...or Batroc, saving that little girl."

He snapped his fingers at me, one of the only people I'd let that slide for. "That's what I mean, Herman. There's more videos like that online...and on Versus, too. Not just Batroc...but other people. And stories, too, on bulletin boards or social networking sites."

"I've seen some of those videos...ordinary people just being heroes," I shrugged. "What does that have to do with me?"  
Abner sighed in his chair. "Christ...how the hell am I going to explain this to you without expanding your ego..." The sincere look he gave me spoke volumes. I leaned forward as he spoke, puzzled, but attentative. "I'm gonna lay this all out, Herman," he told me. "And as much as I can verify is true. You...what you did that first night, it had repercussions..."

I should have known. Action causes reaction. A force always applies an opposing force. Ripples in the water. Magnets pulling on gravity fields. But, at the time...I mean, I was just me. Herman Schultz. How the hell could I have known? The tale was spun, picked up by Abner through YouTube videos, posts from online bulletin boards, and, of course, second-hand hearsay and rumor. I pulled it all together in my mind, and I'm laying it out for you now. One little butterfly, batting his wings, ended up unleashing a storm.


	21. One Shots

"Get those couches up here!" The door shook again under the heavy blows as Jay kept his shoulder pressed against the metal frame. On the opposite side, two more of his fellow students were doing their best to hold the glass door shut from the gathering horde on the other side. It had taken the three of them to shove the small group zombies out of the main entrance to the Empire State Science Building, and now, it took the three of them to keep the double doors shut. In the course of a few moments, what had been four zombies had quickly blossomed into double digits, the central common of the school flooding with ghouls.

"...that's Professor Robinson," Jay's friend said, as the Criminology Professor pushed his torn face against the glass, snapping at the prize just out of reach. "I just had lecture with..."

"COUCHES, NOW!" Jay's feet slid on the tile floor of the Science Building's lobby as he tried to brace himself, to no avail. The glass rattled under the steady assault, fists slamming against the doors. Behind the students, the lobby was filled with scared teens and young adults, paralyzed with fear. No one moved as Jay screamed for help, rooted in place as they saw their inescapable fate on the other side. "Come on, somebody, give me a hand..."

The glass door in front of Jay cracked. A small one, at Jay's eye level...and as the zombie in an ESU rent-a-cop's outfit hit the glass again, the crack spread in both directions. "Oh, no," Jay whispered as each impact saw the glass grow more fragile, tines spreading out in a spider web. Still, he kept his post, his hand now on the door's edges. "Everyone, get moving..."

Before he could finish the sentence, the rent-a-cop flew away.

For a second, Jay thought he was watching Ms. Marvel or the Sentry take off into the air. The rent-a-cop sailed into the air, arcing towards the common, away from the building. And then the zombie who had been next to the cop was blown backwards as well, being flung into the air as opposed to leaping. Within moments, the first line of zombies had been scattered, each of them tossed into the air like a leaf on the wind.

"What the hell," Jay heard one of his friends mumble.

"Dude, keep the door shut!" Jay was surprised as well, but the second line of ghouls was almost at the glass, ready to pick up where their colleagues had left off. In front of Jay, directly on the opposite side of the crack, a one-armed girl in a track outfit, blood smeared all over her bright orange warning vest, was about to slam into the door with her entire body, with maybe just enough to force to shatter the glass and let the mob inside, putting the students at their non-existent mercy.

That fear ended, though, as a metal tube drove down into the girl's head.

Jay flinched, stepping away from the door, as a long, thick, silver cylinder snapped, and the girl's now-lifeless-for-real body went sailing into the grass. On the other side, a second tube did the same thing to a guy wearing a Pi Theta Beta fraternity cap, flinging him away from the building. "Dude, what the hell," his friend said again. "Is that a robot or something?"

"Whatever it is, it's on the side of the building." The tubes were striking down from the ledge that ran above the main entrance to the Science Building, punching into the brains of the zombies through the tops of their skulls before throwing them into the air. Soon, the front of the building was free of the undead, their bodies instead scattered, motionless, across the green lawn just outside. As the last zombie came to rest, the two cylinders reached down once again. Instead of slicing through the air, they gently came to a rest on the concrete sidewalk, wavering slightly. They weren't solid metal cylinders, Jay noticed, but segmented...tentacles.

"Back up." Jay reached out, and put his arm across his nearby friend's chest. "Dude, back up..."

"Why? What are those things?"

"You're from out of town," Jay said, slowly stepping away from the door, his friends moving with him. "You don't know who those belong to."

Once they had walked a few steps, two more tentacles reached down to come to a rest on the ground. Whatever was on the other end of the four metal cylinders soon followed, slowly lowering from its perch on the side of the building to hover in mid-air a few feet off the ground. It moved towards the glass doors, walking not on his feet, but on the four tentacles fused to his spine, thus giving him the well-known nickname, thanks to the effort of the Daily Bugle.

In a white suit and a thick pair of glasses, the pudgy, brown-haired scientist pushed open the door to the Science Building, and, now on foot, walked inside. One of his tentacles reached back and shut the door behind him, and another reared up over his shoulder. At the tentacle's end, three claws slowly snapped together around a red glow that emanated from the "eye" at the center of the claws.

The scientist was looking around the lobby, his eyes obscured by the thick glasses. The students had pulled together now, the unknown, alien threat of the zombies a lesser fear then the villain who stood in their midst now. It was Jay who finally broke the silence. His one step forward caught the attention of the tentacle on the man's shoulder. It slowly moved forward, studying the student, like a snake observing its prey. "What do you want, Doctor?"

Otto Octavius, otherwise known as Doctor Octopus, turned to face Jay. The ESU student stopped himself from taking a step backwards as the former instructor laid his gaze upon him. "Young man, I'm here because there is science to be done," he claimed. "Where are the faculty of this school? The sooner we begin our study of this phenomenon, the sooner we can bring it to an end."

Jay couldn't pull his gaze from Doc Ock's, but behind him, he could hear the student murmuring to themselves. The tentacle wavering over Octavius' shoulder slowly turned to face him. The claws on the end tapped together as both man and machine studied Jay.

Finally, much to Jay's relief, someone spoke up. "Most of us were here for a night time O-Chem class, Doctor. The professor never showed up, and then all the screaming started. We don't know if there's anyone else here."

An angry sigh escaped the bespectacled villain. "Of course. Very well, then. Until they deem themselves scientists and face the unknown, we shall do without them. You!"

The tentacle facing Jay whipped over his shoulder, passing by the young man. He heard the clicking behind him as Doc Ock spoke. "Does Professor Varenwyck still have his laboratory in this building? Very well. You five, go to his office with all haste and obtain the fast-acting experimental resin he's been working on. We will use it to reinforce the doors on the molecular level to be as strong as adamantium. Move together, and do not wander out of each other's sight! You five, Professor Tanzos has welding equipment in his office. We will weld the steel doors shut and barricade the entrances. And as for you, young man..." The doctor was just inches from Jay's face now. "...today is Wednesday, right?" All Jay could do was barely move his head to nod, staring at a man who was the very example of a mad scientist.

"Good," Octavius responded. "The deli on the fifth floor usually is restocked on Wednesdays. We'll have enough food to last us for a bit if we ration it. You, young man, are in charge of that rationing. Do you understand?"

"Yeah...I mean...yes, Doctor."

"And thank you, young man, for calling me 'Doctor' instead of 'Doc.' It gives me hope for the future of academia." Ray took the praise as an excuse to quickly remove himself from the scientist's presence. He took his two friends and moved towards the elevators.

Behind the retreating student, Otto Octavius allowed himself a small smile. "Just because the world ends is no excuse to hide behind locked doors and let ignorance reign," he proclaimed to himself...and the other students still left in the lobby, trying to come to grips with the fact that this madman had saved their lives. "If Herman Schultz can indulge in street-level heroics, then Otto Octavius will boldly climb his ivory tower and save humanity from the very heavens of knowledge!"

X

"Your men must be firm and resolute in their duties. Luckily, the New York City Police Department is the finest police organization in the world, as I have unfortunately experienced firsthand."

"It's gonna be a tough run," Sergeant Steven Armes said as he looked out the second story window overlooking Rockefeller Plaza. "I don't like your odds. If those weren't my boys sitting out there, I'd have put the kibosh in this whole scheme."

"Fidelis ad Mortem," he told the policeman. "And beyond, in this brand new day." The man gently pushed open the front door to 30 Rock. The air was thankfully fresh. The Sergeant was standing next to the man in a large green costume, broad in shoulders and complete with a flowing purple cape. This might be the only bad guy or superhero left who insisted on using a cape. When pressed, the movie buff simply called it "part of my carefully constructed image."

And a useful weapon, Armes had observed, to trip and entangle the slow moving zombies.

Outside the front door, zombies stumbled about the world famous plaza, moving past the flags and statues that had enthralled tourists for decades. At the end of the plaza, though, just off 5th Avenue, a large crowd of ghouls were clawing and scratching at a NYPD police van that had simply run out of gas. A van that held not only 10 members of a NYPD SWAT team, but crates containing several thousand rounds of precious ammunition that were essential to keeping 30 Rockefeller Center secure until someone came to pick them up. Being so close to Central Park, Armes figured they would have been first on the list, but two days after Osborn's announcement, all he had heard on the radio was to "sit tight." The 30-plus members of the New York City Police, along with the assistance of Fishbowl Head (his unofficial nickname among the authorities, though no one said it to his face anymore) had turned the place into a fortress. After sitting tight for two days waiting for rescue, now they were turning into the rescuers. It was a tough run, and the toughest part would be the clearing the mob around the van long enough for this guy to pour enough gas, harvested from the generators in the basement, into the tank so the van could make the final push to the loading dock on the side of the building.

"My men are ready to cover you," Armes told him. "You just better be quick on those fireworks. You sure they'll do the trick?"

Behind his round helmet, Quentin Beck, the Master of Illusion known as Mysterio, smiled. "My dear man, tricks are something a hooker does for money. Or cocaine. My misdirection will see me safe to your men, and I shall bring them back to you. You have my solemn pledge."

"Look at you, Mysterio. Risking your life for a couple of cops. Guess you're taking a page out of Shocker's book, huh?"

"Shocker? My dear man, to compare a virtuoso like me to a simple thug like Schultz is to compare Orson Welles to Tony Scott!"

"Hey, didn't he direct 'Man on Fire?' I liked that movie."

"The original was much better," the movie buff said as he got ready to step outside.

X

"I'm not saying I don't trust you, but it's just that, I don't trust you."

"I can't really blame you." Arthur Parks crossed his arms, floating in the air the ground in front of his opposite number, who was also floating. "But you could use the assistance, and I...I want to help. I can travel at the speed of light. I'm intangible. And, from what I've seen, you could use the extra firepower and manpower right now."

"Why would you want to help, Parks?" War Machine and the Living Laser traded comments 100 feet above the waters of the East River. "Last time we tried to help you, my boss ended up locking you away for murder, after he gave you a job."

"Ok, War Machine, I made an error in judgment. A miscalculation. And now I'm attempting to fix that mistake. I'm not asking for a job around high tech equipment or industrial secrets. I just want to help and do my part to save people."

"What? You saw the Rhino and the Shocker on YouTube, and figured you'd grab a piece of the spotlight? That's damn hard for me to swallow, Parks."

"You're missing the point of that video, War Machine. It's not about the spotlight. It's about the simple act of saving humanity. I know enough about those two individuals to know that they tend to exist under the radar. If two low-level criminals are will to risk their lives in order to help total strangers, then what kind of man would that make me, who's practically invincible to these ghouls that are infecting the world, if I sat by and did nothing? Whatever type of man that is, War Machine, I do not wish to be him."

War Machine hovered in place, weighing Living Laser's words for a few seconds. Maybe he was telling the truth. Parks' light-based body made it impossible for his bio-scanners to determine if he was lying. The one thing Parks had in his favor? He had gotten the drop on a distracted War Machine as he swooped under the Whitestone Bridge, and didn't pull the proverbial trigger. Instead, he had hailed the armor-clad hero and wanted to talk. That definitely added one to the "positive" side of the ledger.

"Alright, Arthur. There's a Red Cross boat coming in and docking at Roosevelt Island. Help me keep an eye on things, and we'll see how it goes from there." Without waiting for an answer, War Machine took off to the north. After a few seconds, he peeked over his right shoulder, taking note of the green-and-white form keeping up with him.

X

"Oh, this is just delicious." The man formerly known as Bentley Wittman was doing his best to keep the boisterous laughter inside of him from erupting, but a few wry chuckles escaped. "You're asking me for help. The supposed smartest man in the world has, after all these years, finally deemed the Wizard worthy of matching his intellect! I wish you allowed cameras within your lab, because I really want to have a picture of this very moment."

"I have the same wish," the rocky voice spoke from the corner. "A picture of me smashing your face would look great on my fridge."

"Ben, please...tact," he gently told his orange friend. The Wizard's megalomania didn't hold a candle to Victor Von Doom's, Reed Richards noted, but the man still had to be coaxed along. "Bentley..."

"Wizard. My name is legally the Wizard." The villain wagged a finger at the scientist. "Copyrights and trademarks, as you know very well."

"...Wizard, yes, I could use your assistance. You've shown the ability to control human minds with your devices. I'm interested in seeing if that technology could be applied to reanimated bodies."

The Wizard scratched his chin. "Really. Do these things posses brain waves?"

"Of the most rudimentary sort," Richards replied, "just a little better then a coma patient. But there's no doubt the brain is the central point of activity. Anything that might affect those brain waves can only help humanity in fighting back."

"Of course, of course...hmm..." Reed kept quiet as the long time foe of the Fantastic Four worked the problem over in his brain. "...your theory holds water, Richards. I've found that simpler patterns are easily more susceptible to my control. I would be willing to show you how my devices work, Richards, on two conditions."

Mister Fantastic nodded. "Name them."

"One, I work beside you. You won't just take my technology and do what you please with it."

"Fine. And the second condition, Wizard?"

A smile slowly stretched across the villain's face. "This one is much simpler. Beg."

"Oh, for the love of Aunt Petunia." Ben Grimm cracked his rocky knuckles together, taking one step forward. "That's it, brainiac, I'm gonna..."

"You lay one hand on me, Grimm, and you'll never see a single circuit board." The Wizard's eyes never left the face of the leader of the Fantastic Four. "How badly do you want to save humanity, Richards? Badly enough to admit emotional defeat? I've ports to weather this storm should I choose. You...and your family, both blood and extended...do you wish to save them on a level that will allow you to swallow your pride and beg for my help?"

Reed may have been wrong. Apparently the Wizard could hold a candle to Doom.

"Forget this guy, Stretch." Grimm shrugged his shoulders, waving a dismissive hand at the former Wittman. "This goon ain't worth the time. You could probably find eighty other eggheads who can do just as good a job as this bum!"

"Hardly, granitehead," the Wizard replied with a snarl.

"No...Ben is correct, Wizard." Richards looked over his shoulder at his long time friend. "There's plenty of people out there who, with the proper application of time and effort, could easily duplicate your technology. Hank Pym, for one. Abner Jenkins, for another." Wizard scoffed as Richards continued. "Henry McCoy's free."

"Hey, Reed, what about Herman Schultz?"

"Hmm...that would be an interesting partnership, Ben." Now Richards scratched his chin, returning the smile back at the villain. "The man's obviously a skilled engineer from what we've seen. Those gauntlets he wears looked very impressive on television."

"Shocker? That miscreant isn't fit to wipe the equations off of my whiteboard! And you'd dare pick him over an intellect like mine? Bah! The fact you'd even bring up his name show just how desperate you are, Richards. Take me to your lab, and I'll show you how a true genius works!"

As Richards motioned for the Wizard to follow him, he saw the quiet smile on the face of the orange rock man, and responded with a wink before leading his foe back towards his work area.

X

"Desperate times calls for desperate measures, Charles."

"I know, my friend." Scott Summers rolled the wheelchair of Charles Xavier across the Academy's lawn towards the men that Scott had spent nearly his entire life fighting. His mentor addressed the leader of the group, clad in scarlet metal armor. "I do recognize the sacrifice of your beliefs that had led you here today, Eric, even if I have never held to them myself."

"It is not a sacrifice," Magneto countered, "it is simply their reapplication to a changing set of circumstances. For the first time that I can recall in human history, there is an enemy who does not wish to enslave the conquered, or annex vast tracts of land, or establish their ideological supremacy. They wish to simply eat their victims, until there is nothing left of humanity or mutantkind. Humanity has chosen to stand and fight, when even someone like the Rhino and his partner risk their lives for complete strangers. Mutants must do the same, and present a united front in the process. Now is the time to prove our worth to humans, be it as their protectors, or their saviors."

"In either case, Eric, I would rather have you fighting beside my X-Men."

"Great and all, governor." The green form squatting by Magneto's side stared at Summers. "Question is, you and yours gonna make sure we ain't caught in the crossfire, takin' advantage of pickin' some of us off?"

Cyclops responded in his crisp, almost-military tone. "Just like you, Toad, I can pick off a fly at 50 feet without hitting anyone else. So don't worry about us. Worry about your own team."

"Anyone who lays a hand upon an X-Man in anger will answer to me directly, Scott. On that, you have my word," Magneto said.

"In that case then, Eric...we have an accord." And with one firm handshake, the Brotherhood of Mutants and the X-Men joined forces.

X

The zombie was still snapping at him even as he pushed his sawblade into the thing's forehead. Decaying flesh and splinters of bone flew into the air as the weapon slice away the thing's head, but it still glared, snarling and biting for the figure at the end of the arm pinning it to the wall. It was only when the jagged edge caught the brain matter underneath the skull that the zombie went limp. Its eyes rolled back in its skull, and the hands reaching for him slumped to the sides.

"Whirlwind, everyone's out! Time to blow this pop stand!"

"On it." The Emerald Eviscerator let the zombie drop to the ground. It had been the last of the zombies that had plagued the Emergency Room of St. Luke's hospital. Most of them were splattered up and down the central corridor, victims of Whirlwind's unique style of attack. Long splashed of blood adorned the white walls, and a mix of limbs and torsos were laid out on the green tile floor. Several of the arms were still attached to their owners, twitching and shaking at the still-animated bodies tried to fulfill whatever primal need drove them. "Dead enough," Whirlwind decided. He stepped over several of the bodies, kicking off a clutching hand at one point, and walked out into the central loading area of the ER.

His partner, assigned to work with him by the Initiative, was currently "reloading" from a nearby water main. Hearing the noise behind him, the red-haired villain turned. "We good?"

"We're good, Aqueduct." Whirlwind held out his green-armored hand. The buzzsaw on the end was red along the edges, with small white bits of brain caught on the end of the teeth. "Mind giving me a blast? I hate walking around with a bloody weapon."

"Sure." Aqueduct raised his arm, and from the nozzle attached to his uniform, a high-pressure stream of water impacted the metal weapon. It spun in place on Whirlwind's forearm, the gore dripping away to the ground. "Everyone's out?"

"Everyone's out. The last bite patient was loaded up. They're taking them up to the Baxter Building for observation." The jet of water ended, leaving slightly pink water to drip off the buzzsaw. "They want us back at Central Park for debriefing and a bit of downtime, ASAP."

"I'm all about the ASAP," Whirlwind told the hydromancer. "Grab on, I'll fly us back." Aqueduct grabbed onto Whirlwind's hands, gripping tightly as the green metal gloves closed around him. The first time Whirlwind had taken to the air, Aqueduct's only thought had been how quickly he could create a pool of water to safely land in if he dropped. Now, though, it was almost, key word being almost, old hat.

Air swirled around Whirlwind's legs, and soon, the pair took off into the air, 25 feet above Manhattan. "You want to go straight back up the highway, or swing out over the river," Aqueduct asked his "pilot" for the evening.

"Up the highway," Whirlwind answered. He readjusted his grip on Aqueduct's hands, and propelled the pair into the night, green air swirling around his lower body. "There's a better chance of finding someone who might be in trouble on the island."

"Look at us..." Aqueduct chuckled, keeping his gaze on the road below. Crashed cars and the occasional dead body occupied what were once busy city streets. "Cruising for civilians to save. Seriously, the next time I see Herman, I'm going to smack him for instilling me with this sudden sense of altruism."

"Hey...there are advantages," Whirlwind said. "Figure, I play the hero long enough, look good, save a couple of civilians...maybe Janet Van Dyne will finally notice me."

"Oh, Christ, Cannon, do you have issues..."

X

"Frozen, James, finish em off!"

"Last one!" Speed Demon swung the shovel around like a baseball player going for the fences. The sharp edge easily slid into the temple of the zombie, and kept right on going, 140 miles per hour worth of momentum slicing the top of its skull clean off. The cap of hair and bone bounced neatly on the street as the zombie hunched over at the waist. It "stood" there as it came to rest, unable to drop to the ground as the thick slab of ice around its feet held it in place.

"Whew..." His arms were sore, but the adrenaline pumping through Speed Demon's body at the moment almost made it all worthwhile. "Never gonna complain again about how much A-Rod makes. How many was that?"

"Forty-three," Blizzard replied, "give or take a few." All the way up the block, zombies were bent at the waist, some forward, toes going to the ground like they were stretching, and some backwards from the impact of the specialized weapon. "Nice work."

"Yeah. It's nice when they're stationary targets. How you holding up, Donald?"

"Oh, the usual. I'm sore, tired, and just plain scared, James," Blizzard told his long time friend. "All things considered...I'd rather be somewhere else."

"Hey, don't knock it. We're a damn good team. We have to be pushing about 300 kills by now? Line them up, knock them down. Damn good team."

"Yeah, you know who else was a good team? Bonnie and Clyde. That ended well."

Speed Demon shook his head. "Jesus, Donald...well, if that's the case? You're Bonnie."

"Like hell I am," Blizzard protested. "You're Bonnie! I mean, you're the one in a skintight outfit showing off every damn curve..."  
"It's for wind resistance...and why the hell are you looking at every curve on my body, Donald?"

"Because I'm sick of looking at your ass all day, James. If you'd just sit down once in a while and firmly pressed a couch cushion against your butt, maybe it'd shut you up."

"Wow, Donald. That was a long way to go..."

A single gunshot rang out from an adjoining block. Speed Demon and Blizzard immediately turned, bodies tense for action...until a high-pitched voice squeaked out with pride.

"ONE!"

"Damn it...I was hoping the zombies took care of him," Blizzard groused.

Another gun shot. "TWO!"

"We wouldn't be that lucky. Guys like him never, ever die. Punisher should have spared Stilt-Man and shot him," Speed Demon replied.

Bang. Bang. "THREE! FOUR! FOUR DEAD GHOULIES, MU WAA HAH HAH!"

"I'll give him this...the guy's good with guns. Better he's working with us then against us," Blizzard countered. "Just...that voice. And the way he talks...the guy's just WEIRD."

"Yeah, no wonder Captain America smiled when we all got assigned together. War hero or not, the bastard owes us one for making us put up with the idiot..."

"Five! No, wait, I did it wrong..."

Bang.

"Five!"

"...and as far as I'm concerned..."

Bang. "Six! Looks out, ladies, your friendly neighborhood psychopath is coming to your cul-de-sac with a whole bunch of Girl Scout cookies!"

"...that something is a date with She-Hulk," Speed Demon finished, as their partner finally came into view. He was walking backwards, two guns pointing down the street. Crossed swords adorned the back of his red-and-black outfit. Speed Demon couldn't make out what he was shooting at, but whatever it was, the man's voice was filled with what could only be described as hyperactive glee.

Four more shots rang out into the New York night air. "Seven...eightnineten! Yes! C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!" Spinning his pistols for a moment, the figure shoved them back into the holsters on his hips, and turned to face his partners in crime. "Flash! Captain Cold! How stands the Union tonight?"

Speed Demon shook his head sadly. Behind him, Blizzard managed to maintain some level of decorum. "Forty-three. Block looks pretty clear to us."

"Outstanding, gentlemen. Now, all we need to do is go to Walgreen's, get some supplies, and...wait..." The red-and-black clad figure put a finger to the lips on his mouthless mask. "No, that's an earlier part of the story. Where are we now? Oh, yeah, we're near the middle. Sorry. I get confused in all this excitement."

"Whatever," Speed Demon groused. "What's out next move?"

"Getting you some better writers, for one," the man with the mouth replied. "This Chris Myers guy is a hack! How about Patrick Zircher...nice fill-in guy...Warren Ellis, but he just ain't your style. Mark Warren DEFINITELY ain't your style, even if you're trying to rock the Empowered look with that suit. Geoff Johns and zombies is cliché by now, and if there's one thing the Bullpen doesn't do, it's clichés. Nah, we'll get Mark Waid to work with you, do a limited series. He knows speedsters. No, wait...I can see it now. 'Dark Reign: Quicksilver!' We'll get Andy Diggle, he owes me a favor..."

"Just...please...shut...up." James drew out every word, his hands clenching as the high-pitched voice squeaked and rambled. "We're here to do a job. Let's just do that job, ok? Quietly."

"Hey, Professor Zoom, I'm here to do a job, too! Just by putting me in this story, you're gonna see a bump in positive reviews, thumbs up, and five-star ratings. Stick with me, Johnny Quick, I'm gonna make you a star!"

"What story? What the hell are you talking about," Speed Demon said.

"Come on! Everyone loves throwing me into the middle of an action scene! Guns, booze, babes...and Donnie's right, you're so Bonnie in your bro-mance...I'm like Wolverine. Put me on the cover and watch those sales skyrocket!"

"My head's going to explode..." James mumbled.

"Now, now, no Electro's. You're gonna make it to the end of the story, James."

Pause.

"Or will you? Now, as for me...well, that's up to the people reading at home! Hey, kids? Enjoying the fact that the Merc with a Mouth has been shoved into a Shocker story for absolutely no reason whatsoever? Well, you can do something about it! Just pick up the phone or send in those Hostess Filling UPC's, and don't forget... vote for 'Deadpool/Squirrel Girl' in 2012, or I'll shoot this mercenary!"

"Why the hell does he have a gun pointed at his head," Blizzard asked his friend.

"Shhhh. Let's see where he's going with this..."


	22. The View from Down Under

Silence filled the air between Abner and I once he finished talking. We sat across the table, staring at one another. The only sound was the quiet volume of the televisions as I processed all the information that my colleague had given me. Tales of heroics, altruism, assistance, bargaining, coercion, bravery, valor. Longtime enemies putting aside their differences. Guys who wouldn't look twice at someone being mugged risking their butts to save a civilian.

And I was, in some way, the reason for those very things.

There was only to say to a revelation like that.

"I need bourbon."

"No, you don't," Abner said as I stood up from the table.

"Yes, I do." I walked around to the kitchen as Abner got up. My stash of booze was near the living room in a shoddily put together chest for those rare occasions when I had guests. The good liquor, I kept under the kitchen sink, with the cleaning supplies. No villain worth his salt would ever grab a Hefty bag from someone else's kitchen to assist with the clean up. "Grab me some ice from the freezer, would you," I asked as I opened the cabinet door.

"Herman, the last thing you need right now is more booze in you, especially after all the beer and coffee you've drank in the last hour..."

"Fine. I'll take it neat." I put the bottle of Ten High on the counter. "Now, grab me a glass," I told Abner as I unscrewed the cap, "or else I'm chugging right out of the damn bottle."

Sighing, Abner pointed to the sink. "Looks like someone did dishes earlier tonight. There's a tumbler on the drying rack."

Thank you, Anne, Ashley, Pete, Robert, whoever. The Ten High was normally my own personal celebration for a job well done, like the armored car heist from earlier in the week, something I saved and savored for those brief times in my life where things went absolutely right. This bottle, I'd had for about a year, half-full of bourbon before I poured about four thumbs worth of amber liquid into the clean tumbler. Abner watched, not saying a word, as I lifted the glass to my mouth and slammed the bourbon. It burned pleasantly as it hit my throat, scorching the skin sweetly before heading down to my stomach. "Gahhhh!" I put the tumbler down on the counter next to the bottle as a ball of fire formed in my stomach. "Whew...wow. Man, I needed that..."

"You done?"

"Yeah, Abner, I'm done." The warmth reassured me as I sealed the bottle back up. After hiding it under the sink once again, I leaned on the counter, studying the cheap Formica surface. "So...no jokes? You're not screwing around on this?"

He slowly shook his head. "Don't take this the wrong way, Herman, but I'm just as surprised as you are. It's the honest truth, though. I'm not messing with you. Every word, as far as I can confirm, is true. Didn't Spider-Man mention any of this to you last night?"

"The wall-crawler said he wanted to talk to me, but the two of us ain't exactly on a first name basis." I idly scratched at a stain on the countertop with one finger. "We spent more time trying not to kill the other guy at first. Once we got to talking...he...he kinda felt me out on the topic. Asked me about my hideout, how many civvies I had under my wing, and then said he didn't believe me. So we yelled at each other for a bit, I called him a hypocrite, he said a leopard doesn't change his spots, and then we both agreed to a draw before it got violent. He gave me a ride back here, and then I got knocked out by Fred's miracle pulls until you showed up." Ramen powder, that's what the stain was. Got a drop of water mixed in with it somehow, stained the wood. It'll take a hard scrubbing to get it out.

"There was an unofficial standing order. The first person who finds Herman Schultz was to feel him out, try to figure out what the hell his plan is if he has one." Abner rapped the cheap material with a metal knuckle. "What you did threw a lot of people on the superhero side of the equation for a loop, Herman. Normally, when the world starts ending, the bad guys either run and hide, or they try to take full advantage of the situation. So all of a sudden, before SHIELD or the Initiative could mobilize, here's the Shocker of all people, with the Rhino, pulling people out of a 7-11 and staring down Hawkeye. You know what kind of effect that footage had, Herman?"

"A lot of second guessing and wondering what my grand master plan was?"

"Among the superhero crowd, yeah," Abner answered honestly. "But among everyone else? Think about it...while the good guys are sitting there, paralyzed, after seeing the footage of Nick Fury popping the Wrecker in the head, and everyone's trying to come to terms with the fact that zombies are walking around trying to eat people...here comes the Shocker and Rhino, taking action, and saving the day." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the smile forming on his face. "You set a precedent, Herman. The good guys were sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, and the bad guys...well, they decided that maybe they needed to be the good guys."

I scraped at the stain with a fingernail. "You're telling me that all the villains in the world made a call to start playing nice? Because I'll see that notion, and raise you Electro...and whoever this guy is behind the scenes pulling strings and taking orders."

"Oh, of course not. Crusher Creel's causing a mess up in Seattle, and Victor Von Doom's sealed off his country. Not to mention that AIM made a play for the Start Skunkworks out in Anaheim. But for the most part...people realized, Herman, this time's for all the damn marbles. Hell, you got Blizzard out from behind a locked door and playing a hero. You know Donnie, the second it gets too hot, he cuts and runs."

I sighed. "It's just...it's a bit hard to swallow, Abner. You're sitting here, and you're telling me I'm this...catalyst, yeah. This catalyst for a sudden rise of altruism. Can't quite wrap my mind around it. I mean..." Sighing again, I raised my head to look my friend in the eye. "...ok, yeah, I did something heroic when I pulled everyone out of that 7-11. So they there are on ABC, calling me and Rhino out because we did something...good. Hell, it's something any decent human being would have done. If it had been some of Mole Men's creatures...ok, if it had been the Mole Man, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of my chair, but if I had been walking by the place, I would have done something. So yeah...being called a hero was nice. Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling down inside. But...nothing to write home about. It was just supposed to be a onetime thing..."

"...and then you went out and rescued Robert's son and Rhino's countrymen from the bakery." I blinked at Abner's comment, and he shrugged. "I got the story from Fred and Aleksei, Herman. They told me everything about them, and Rhino talking about grabbing the kids from the apartment building, and also, you gave weapons to the Army as well. And putting your life on the line to get insulin? That's the icing on the cake, Herman." Shaking his head, Abner put on his best smile. "Face it, Herman. You are a hero. Why the hell does it bug you so much, man? You're walking the walk, why can't you accept the talk?"

I couldn't monologue it. I didn't have the time to sit and figure it out. Abner was pushing me, not giving me a chance to think. "Because...I did something heroic, Abner. That sure as hell doesn't make me want to go sign up for the Avengers, and damn sure they're not holding their breath waiting for my membership papers. You're sitting here talking about how I'm...Reed Richards is name dropping me, Abner? Reed Richards? The guy dreams up stuff more complex them my gauntlets in his sleep, in between banging Susan Storm, and he's using me for leverage against the Wingless Wizard? That's...I'm no hero, Abner. And I'm damn sure not an inspiration."

Abner started to respond...but a quiet beeping interrupted him. I watched as he lifted his metal-clad arm, noticing the red light flashing on the underside of his forearm. "Damn...I gotta go, Herman."

"Kitten trapped in a tree," I managed to tease.

"Nah, Wonder Man needs a wingman for Throng's Neck Bridge duty." He pushed away from the counter. "You need anything? Want me to try to swing back with some medicine?"

"Nah," I told Abner as he grabbed his helmet from the kitchen table. He swigged a last slug of black coffee as I talked. "We're pretty good from Rhino and mine's last haul. Keep it for people who really need it."

"See, Herman? That's a heroic gesture right there." Laughing at my scowl, he snapped his helmet on. "Take care, Herman. I'll see you soon," Mach-IV said to me as he headed for the steps leading to the roof.

"Watch your ass, Abner," I responded. "Be seeing you."

X

"Yo, Herman? You decent?"

It took me a couple of seconds to respond to Fred. "Yeah, Fred. Come on in." This conversation was going to be interesting.

"Been in here a long time by yourself, mate," Fred said as he walked behind the wooden

partition into the sleeping area. "Enjoying a date with Rosie..."

Pause.

"Ah, Christ, Herman."

"What do you want, Fred?"

"Just wanted to make sure you were holding up ok...now I know you were just back here going insane. What the hell is with the getup?"

I was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my brown-and-yellow mask in both hands. It was the final piece of my quilted costume that I hadn't put on yet. "I was thinking about going back out, actually," I told my friend. "Seeing if Aleksei wanted to join me this time. Still haven't decided yet, but I figured I might as well get dressed in case I make a call that way."

Fred crossed his arms as he leaned against a nearby girder. "Herman...God, mate, why the hell would you want to go back outside? You don't need to. Everyone in here's safe, we got enough stuff to last us for a month, and there aren't any of those things pounding on our door. We're safe. Hell, this is the safest place on all of bloody Manhattan. There's no damn reason to go out, Herman."

I looked up from the mask. "Could be someone out there who needs a hand. Someone the Army missed, or the Avengers overlooked..."

"Ah, god damn it!" Frustrated, Fred threw his arms into the air. "I knew it! All that stuff Abner said to you, all that stuff about you being a hero to the masses, it got stuck in your head and now it's causing you to come down with a terminal case of stupid! Come on, Herman, would you think this out for a second?"

"I've been thinking for a while, actually. I mean...hell, Fred, Aleksei and I, we're a good team. As long as we just keep doing what we did the past few nights...we could find a couple of more people, bring them back here. Drop a few zombies in the process..."

"Or get bitten in the process. Or mobbed by those things. Or, hey, how about maybe getting your head blown off by the Punisher? Or have someone else lined up to take a shot at you like Electro was?"

"All taken into consideration," I told him.

"And after all those things going to the bloody negative column, you're still having this debate?" I didn't answer him, instead turning my gaze back to my mask. "Oh, for the..." Footsteps, and then the scraping of a chair across the concrete floor. Fred turned the chair around, and straddled it. Arms folded over the top of the back of the chair, I felt his eyes studying me as I debated walking a path of madness. "Talk to me, Herman. What's going on in your mind?"

I didn't answer, keeping my focus on my headpiece. I was going over everything I had said, and everything Fred had responded with. Saving a life. The Punisher. Having Aleksei at my back. Tooth and claw pulling at my flesh. Some random criminal taking a potshot at me on orders from Electro's boss. Snatching a child from the jaws of a zombie...

Fred never said a word. He just sat there, staring at me. For one of the few times since I had met him, all I got was total silence from Boomerang. After a few minutes, his quiet gaze got to me more than his motormouth ever did. "Abner called me a hero, Fred. The guys on ABC called me a hero. Aleksei too. I never, at any point in my life, ever considered that someone'd hang that word on me. It's been bugging me and bother me, and it took Abner and Spider-Man to make me look at it. All that...saving those kids, going to grab Ernesto...that was me on autopilot. No thinking, no debates...just me going on reflex, and figuring out the details on the fly. Not improvising...but being like 'ok, I'm gonna go rob a bank,' and then being like 'holy crap, now what do I do' when I'm standing there pointing my vibro-smasher at a teller."

His eyes were locked on my face, I could tell. It reminded me of Rabbi Yoshi back in junior high school, when he'd call me to the front of the class...yeah, I know, German last name, Jewish high school. It's New York City. He wasn't saying a word, and I found myself filling the lull. "I don't know...I mean, ok, there's the right thing. You're gonna help a man out of an overturned car, or stop some woman who's being pushed around by a gang. Hell, I've done both of those things, it didn't make me a hero, it made me a human being. That's all this is. Just being a human being, because now it's a woman behind shoved around by a bunch of guys who are gonna eat her. At this point, it's tantamount to murder to leave someone behind. It's a damn death sentence."

Still nothing but silence. Damn it, Fred. "Someone's gotta do it. I've shown a knack for it, with Aleksei's help. Hell, maybe I'm just bored. No offense, but sitting around here watching CNN and Versus 24-7 isn't exactly the most exciting stuff in the world." After a few seconds, my voice broke the silence again. "Or, maybe I found something I'm good at. I mean, yeah, being a good guy...hell, I was worried about the responsibility. That was my big concern, not being able to handle actually taking care of people...but they have shelter, food, water, medicine. And...aside from the massive bruising and near-death experience, it's not so bad. What do you think, Fred?"

My plan to pull him into the conversation failed, as he simply shrugged his shoulder in a non-committed manner. "So I can handle the responsibility...but this whole other thing. Being an inspiration. I just...come on. Otto Octavius is out there keeping Empire State University safe because if I can do it, he can do it? Speed Demon's actually doing his part for society? No...no way. I'm this big bright shining beacon in the darkness, making people go out and do good things? I'm responsible for all that? What's next, I kill every zombie on the planet, punch out Galactus, and nail the Black Cat? Not likely, right?"

Say something, Fred, come on! "Hero, I can live with. But being an inspiration...I never wanted that. I wanted to be...I wanted power..."

"Bull, Herman. All you ever wanted was recognition."

"Remember back in the Bar a couple nights ago? I overheard you and James talking while I was shooting pool. And I remember exactly what you said to him when you two blokes were sitting on barstools drowning your bloody sorrows. Exactly, word for word."

Fred leaned over the back of the chair, jabbing his finger at me as he spoke. 'You ever feel, James, like you had the potential to just do more? Like, some great big score, or this huge heist?' Those were your exact words, Herman. But it wasn't about the power and money that would come along with holding up the Federal Reserve. You never brought that aspect up. I know what bugged you...it was when James, and everyone else, thought Electro was the one who blacked out Manhattan, when it was all your doing. Hell, people still think Maxwell was behind it, even after it came otherwise."

I opened my mouth, but Fred immediately pointed at me. "No, Herman. My turn. Been sitting here quietly the past few days while you and Aleksei have been running around the city with a death wish, so it's my time to sit here and talk some damn sense into you. So sit there and shut up."

Hell, when told like that...Fred ran his mouth, but when it was time to get serious, you could tell. It was, to use a relevant analogy, watching a pitcher go into 'we are not losing this game' mode. The jovial tone was gone from Fred Myers, replaced with something with a lot of respect and weight behind it. "Electro snagged the fame from the blackout job. That's exactly what it's all about for you, Herman. I mean, look at you. You're a damn engineering genius. You built your gloves in a prison machine shop, with a box of scraps! You could have gone to school, gotten a master's, and probably be working for Stark Enterprises right now designing helicopter engines. But you know what? If you had done that, Herman, you'd be another face in the crowd. You'd be the third guy in the second row wearing a stupid looking hard hat. That wouldn't be enough for you, Herman, not by a long shot."

"Whoa, wait..."

"Hey! Still talking here!"

"Ok, ok," I mumbled.

"You prided yourself on being a top notch safecracker and second-story man. Lord, even now, with your gloves and your suit, you still call yourself a safecracker, one of the world's best. It's because you want to be known as the world's best. Let's be honest, we're both in a field where it's damn easy to stand out and make your mark. No one outside of Stark Enterprises would have known who Herman Schultz, PhD was, but there are people out there who damn sure know who the Shocker is."

"There ain't a lot of them..."

"Ok, see! Right there," he said triumphantly. "That little comment, Herman. You want people to know who you are, what your name is, what you do, and just how damn good you are at doing it!" Fred took a breath, and I immediately took full advantage of the pause in conversation.

"Yeah? Then why the hell am I freaking out over all of this? If I wanted all this glory and prestige, I'd be paling around with the Avengers getting my mug on TV!"

Fred gave off a perfect sigh-plus-eye-roll at my comment. "Because you wanted recognition and to fly under the radar."

I laughed from the back of my throat. "Come on, those two don't even go together!"

"Yeah they do! Look, you always prided yourself on not being on the list of a guy like the Punisher, or the Scourge of the Underworld, right?" Ok, I'll concede that point, and did so with a nod. "Hell, a few months ago, Hydro-Man wanted to go throw himself at Spider-Man, but you stopped him and convinced Morris to stick to bank robberies and low-profile gigs."

"Ok, see," I told him. "That proves you're wrong, I don't want to be known."

"Except for the fact that, and this is coming directly from Hydro-Man, you busted into the bank and said 'I'm the Shocker! I'm not going to hurt you, but I'm the Shocker!'" Fred smirked, and wagged his finger at me lightly. "Tell me I'm wrong. You want to be a professional, but you're also not going to go out there and calling attention to yourself. All of a sudden, there's this blitz of attention from people you wanted to impress, but also...you didn't want to draw the notice of, in case they decided to come calling."

"Alright, Fred. I see your point...I think."

"Mate," Fred said, laughing, "I ain't a professional therapist. I'm just calling it like I see it. Fred Myers' Clinic, headshrinking without the stretched skin."

It was my turn to be quiet for a few seconds. "Hell, I wanted to be the guy everyone pointed to as being 'professional.' A real criminal, a guy who got away with everything scot free. Any idiot can walk into a bank. A real pro walks out of the bank and down the street without anyone noticing." I sigh, chuckling as soon as I was done. "I guess you're right...I'm not used to the spotlight. To me, the best gigs, people don't even really know you were ever there until after you're gone."

"Exactly. That's your style, Herman. And that's part one of your problem."

"Part one?" I flipped the mask over in my hands, studying the stitching. "Fred, this is turning into an analysis session."

"Hey, this is what happens when I drink. You get the full 60 minutes on the couch. Normally, it's a lovely lass on the cushions, but..."

"Alright, alright," I laughed. "Then what's part two of what's wrong with me?"

"Hell, that one's easy, mate. You're trying to come to grips with that fact that you might actually be hero material," Fred said. "You keep seeming to have that argument. I heard you have it with Abner, and I know you kind of talked about it with Aleksei, as much as the big guy can hold a serious conversation."

"I'll give you that one," I answered quietly. A finger ran down the front of my mask, going over the bumps in the quilting. I traced the wires underneath, following them down to the leads near the neckpiece. "What do you think? You think I'm hero material?"

"Mate, you rob banks, you crack safes, you have a secret hideout, pal around with wanted criminals, go one-on-one with Spider-Man monthly, and are pretty much a thug. So my answer? Hell no, Herman, you ain't hero material." With that said, Fred's face took on a wide smile. "You're just a nice guy."

"Ok, NOW I know you're pulling my leg, Fred."

"Said you were a nice guy, Herman. You sure as hell ain't a saint. You're robbed, assaulted, and almost murdered. You drink like a fish, you hire hookers when they return your phone calls, you bet on the Yankees. Need me to go on?"

"What's wrong with betting on the Yankees?"

"Everything. Ok, let's turn that around. You don't kill anyone. You go out of your way to make sure no one gets seriously hurt. You help damsels in distress. You pay your bar tab. You let me and Aleksei crash here all the time. You forgave James when he left you hanging to pay back the Bookie." He motioned over his shoulder, back towards the living room area. "People on the TV, they've been talking about how complex the world just got. Me, Herman? I think it's the other bloody way around. The world just got a whole lot simpler. It's the living and the dead, mate, black and white, us vs. them. The rules got rewritten the moment the first body got back up and decided to have a snack. You always followed your own set of rules, Herman. Now you're just rewriting them...because today? It's a hell of a lot easier to be a good guy then a bad guy."

"So what does that make you, Fred? You finally going to play for the good guys?"

"Hell no. I'm retired," Fred smirked. "I'm still an asshole, I'm still a murderer, and right now, you're keeping of off the streets and keeping me in free beer, even if it is domestic crap. Speaking of which...if I stay back here any longer, people are gonna think we're a couple." Fred stood up, stretching his arms out. "Herman...you do what you want to do. I ain't ever gonna stop you unless it gets in my way. Just don't beat yourself over whatever choice you want to make. Just let fly and trust yourself to hit the target, no matter how long it takes."

He turned and left the bedroom...and a few seconds later, I followed him. "Aleksei," I said, walking over to my workbench. "I'm thinking about going back out. If I go, you want to come along?"

The big guy looked up from the plate of ham he had been devouring at the kitchen table. "Back out? Why the hell do you want to do that?"

The gathered survivors in my warehouse were all staring at me now. My last trip was supposed to be my last trip. Instead, there I was, in costume, checking out the power level in my vibro-smashers. "Abner said there might still be people out there who need a hand. Robert, you think we could absorb a few more survivors?"

"Um...yeah...yeah, Herman," the older gentleman said. "Maybe five or six more. Beyond that, we're pushing it."

"Five or six. Got it." I was in auto-pilot again, but this time, the part of my brain that would be screaming in panic was a muffled whisper. I was going solely on reflex, following the same patterns I did anytime I left the warehouse for a job. "Aleksei?"

He was gobbling down the last of the ham on his plate. "Just let me get dressed. You sure about this, Herman?"

"Absolutely not," I told him as I began to pull my vibro-smashers on. "It seems like a good idea, though. Doesn't it?"

"Yeah, so did Custer's plan at Little Big Horn." That came from Boomerang, who had taken position on the couch, sitting next to Ashley. "I'll be on communications if you need them," he told me, reaching for the headphones on the table. "I swear, this is like the end of 'Schlinder's List.' Herman thinking he can save one more..."

"I can save one more, Fred. Shouldn't have given me a therapy session," I quipped as I pulled the second gauntlet on. "It motivated me."

"Shiny," Boomerang groused. "So go be good guys."

X

So that brings us up to speed. The good news is no more flashbacks. From here out, I promise, everything's in straight-as-an-arrow chronological order.

Now, you can hopefully figure out how and why Herman Schultz, aka the Shocker, safe cracker, bank robber, professional criminal, opponent of Spider-Man, and proud New Yorker, came to be in this situation, boldly walking down the middle of an abandoned Manhattan street in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Catalysts are ingredients that either increase or decrease the speed of a chemical reaction without being consumed by the reaction in the process. I don't know if you could call the end of the world and the rise of the living dead a catalyst in the life and personal growth of Herman Schultz, but apparently, I was a catalyst for a lot of other people to bring them down on the side of...well, screw it. The side of 'good.' It may not be a 99.4% pure white type of good, but right now, the world needs more altruism and sacrifice. And if I was the guy who brought about that change in others...I believe what Abner told me, but I don't believe it. Schlubs like me don't save the planet or become a cheerleader, ra-ra, rally around the banner and all that crap. I'd get hired for a job, or come up with one on my own, plan it, execute that plan, and go home. If something went wrong, the next time, I adapted and planned for it. All those times I battled Spider-Man to a draw? Some guys never learned, just kept throwing themselves at him and getting their asses handed back in return. I upgraded my gauntlets, shoved contact plates in my suit, ran a communications system through my costume, and only fought that webhead if we happened to cross paths. A respected blue-collar criminal, that's all I ever wanted to be.

Fred was right on the money, though. The rules got changed in the middle of the game. All that energy, all that urge to make myself comfortable and rich, gone. In its place...well, apparently, if my actions over the last couple of nights are any indication, it's an urge to put myself on the line to save complete and utter strangers and pull then from harm's way.

Ok, ok, by this point, I know a lot of you are yelling "YOU'RE A HERO, HERMAN! JUST ADMIT IT AND MOVE ON! LESS INTROSPECTION, MORE ZOMBIE KILLING!" And, if what that freak Slapstick told me is true, a few of you are waiting for Aleksei and I to declare our undying affection for each other and become lovers.

First off...that ain't ever gonna happen. You people, and you know who you are, are sick.

And second...I ain't a hero. Right now, at least, I'm not. I'm playing at being a hero, and doing a damn good job at it, but if the world somehow flipped back to normal tomorrow morning, in a few days, I'd probably be right back to robbing banks and getting beat up by Spider-Man. You don't change who you are overnight. Your personality's hardwired into you, and rewriting those lines of code is a long-term process. No one just flips a switch and goes "this morning, I'm going to stop smoking" and that's it. You crave, you cheat, and you backslide. Maybe, a few months down the road, you wake up and realize "hey, I haven't wanted a cigarette in a while. Maybe I'm cured." But you spend the rest of your life with the threat of relapse held over your head. One day, you might slip and grab a cigarette. With that first drag, the question becomes, do you fall right back into old habits, or throw that butt in the garbage and keep going on with your day?

Ask me that question in a month, if the world's still here and a living, breathing Herman Schultz is getting out of bed in the morning.

X

"Ugh," I mumbled as the naked zombie staggered down the darkened aisle towards me.

The streetlights were still on in this neighborhood, giving off just enough light to reflect off of the zombie's remaining eye. The rest of its body, including the other eye socket, was blackened. It sounded like paper rubbing together as it shuffled forward. The moan it tried to make came off as a gurgle, a choking sound from a thing that didn't need to breathe anymore.

Whatever had singed its skin, for some reason, didn't burn the brain tissue and had left just enough skin and muscle for a proper reanimation. I couldn't even tell if this thing had been a man or a woman, thanks to the damage done to its body and the lack of lights inside this corner drugstore. In any case, it was coming towards me, and that was reason enough for me to blast it. A short-range level-one stopped the creature cold. It dropped to the floor, and I stepped over it on the way towards the pharmacy area in the back. I could hear shuffling and moaning from the other aisles, but I did my best to ignore them. My plan for this was a quick smash-and-grab. Smash through the zombies, grab what I needed, and smash my way right back out.

Something hissed loudly, a form grabbing at my costume as I reached the end of the aisle. I didn't even stop to look at it. Its hands were flung away from my costume as I shot a no-look level two in that direction. By the time the body thumped onto the tile floor, I was climbing the stairs to the little pharmacy.

Our big supply run was to a well-stocked, well-lit, well-known Walgreen's. And we all saw how that one turned out. Great haul, near death experiences all around. My last time out, I almost got killed by Electro, and then by the Punisher. This time, no screwing around, no looking for any more survivors, no running down the street after some flying shadow that may not even exist, especially without Aleksei by my side to watch my back and keep me from doing something extremely stupid. I felt a little wary leaving Aleksei on his own to lead everyone back to TriBeCa, but it's a relatively straight shot from Houston Street. And the subways, until tonight, had been clear of those things. In a small tunnel with no room to really move around in, the advantage is with Aleksei. I'd just be in the way. But I still felt naked without him around, which is why I was trying to minimize my exposure.

I picked a mom-and-pop store, right on the corner a few blocks away from the Houston Street subway in Greenwich Village. The intersection had a few ghouls, but I easily walked past them into the store. After popping the ones closest to me, I was now grabbing the first two items on my list from the pharmacy; more insulin, just in case we had picked up another diabetic tonight, and testing strips to ensure we weren't letting the medicine go to waste. As soon as those items were stuffed into my suit, I was on my way back to the aisle I had just walked up for the third and final thing we needed. Waiting for me on the steps leading up to the pharmacy, a small child, missing half its scalp, growled at me. I knew I had finally become truly jaded about the whole "living dead" thing when I punted the kid square in the jaw with my metal boot. As he went ass over teakettle down to the floor, I strode right past him. At the far end of the aisle, the front door was wide open, and I could make out two forms staggering inside. Quickly, I turned to the shelves and grabbed the final item on my checklist, two big bottles of multi-vitamins. That had been Ashley's idea, pointing out that with so many people being crowded into the warehouse, it was important to make sure no one got too sick and spread a bug to everyone else. Especially if someone got sick and died. That would really suck.

That was it. No urge to grab anything else on a whim, any NyQuil, any snacks, any lip balm. I had what I wanted, and right now, I was making my exit. The two zombies at the front door had turned into four or five. I couldn't quite make out exact numbers in the dark, but it was definitely a crowd. As I walked down the aisle towards them, I threw out a level-two blast at the closest one, not aiming for a head shot, just trying to catch the crowd and stagger them a bit. The shot caught the ghoul in the chest, pushing him backwards just enough to block the two behind him. It gave me enough breathing room to slide around the end of the aisle, well out of reach. Even as they tried to regain their balance and come after me, the zombies were grabbing at the air in a vain hope of grabbing me. Dream on, boys.

Autopilot. Not thinking, not panicking. I had done this before, and walked away every time. There was always the element of risk, but as long as I wasn't stupid or foolish, I was solid. The groans coming from behind me, as the ghouls in the store started to close in, didn't bother me too much, sending small shivers down my spine that I easily squashed. Last trip out. No doing something dumb and ending up a walking corpse. Take that fear, gift wrap it, and put it in a box labeled "do not open until 3 am on a Monday morning as you lie dreaming." That's what heroes do, right? Stare down Galactus, survive a fight with Venom, give good copy for the press and good sound bites for the news channels, and then go home and have a breakdown in the shower. Concern keeps you alive. Fear keeps you huddled up in the corner while a wave of undead advance on you.

The front of the small store was a long plate-glass window. Over the stacks of items listed "for sale" packed on the shelf against the window, I could see zombies shuffling towards the door, drawn by the moans of their brethren. In a couple seconds, there would be enough undead bodies crammed into the main entrance to trap me inside, leaving me no choice but to blast my way out. Which is exactly what I was planning on doing, with one carefully placed vibro-smash.

I climbed up onto the far end of the counter just as the mass of zombies shoved their way into the store. The ones I had staggered regained their footing as the mob pushed them back to their feet. "Yeah, uglies, come on, right here," I taunted them once I had found my footing. "Right here, guys, all you can eat!"

Not yet...

A few more zombies lumbered across my field of vision, towards the front door, even though they would have had no hope of getting through the crush to grab a piece of me. Reflex, instinct, that's what I was counting on. "Come on, you want a piece of Herman Schultz, maybe a leg or a thigh? You walking body bags, get some, right here!"

Not yet...

The sheer sized of the mob helped it close the distance to me quickly. They shoved each other with outreached arms, pushing along instead of drunkenly stumbling. But I kept waiting. Just a little longer...the sweat rolled down my neck, just one little drop on the nape drawing my attention. Who the hell stands in one place waiting for a horde of ghouls to get closer and closer?

A guy with a plan, that's who.

With the closest one was ten feet away, I pointed both hands towards the plate window and fired off a pair of level-three blasts. The glass shattered instantly as the vibration slammed into it, sending large pieces out onto the street. Immediately, I leapt off the counter, jumping through the window and landing on the sidewalk right outside the drug store, my feet crunching on the broken glass that now littered the ground. In front of, sprawled out on the pavement, a zombie was twitching in its undeath throes, thanks to a large piece of plate glass that was sticking out of its forehead. I passed the twice-gone-corpse, sprinting across the street towards the line of waiting cars.

Trap play. I had to use myself as live bait again, just like earlier at the subway station, to pull those suckers into the store. Now, that mob was trapped. Some were going to try to climb out the window, and with their dexterity and reflexes, good luck. Some were going to try to go right for the front door, bumping into each other and pushing to be the first ones out. And some were down on the sidewalk, victims of the shrapnel my little stunt had caused.

The only drawback to my plan...well, there were two. First, if my gloves, for some reason hadn't fired, I would have been in deep kimchee, weaponless and with a really ticked off group of living dead on my heels, but that thought didn't even really cross my mind. My bigger concern was the noise I made breaking out of the drug store, because there was a damn good chance it could attract even more ghouls. It had been a risk worth taking, however, because even with the noise, my plan had done exactly what I had calculated it to do; clear the streets of the majority of zombies so I could hotwire a car in relative calm and get the hell out of there.

I could have walked back to TriBeCa, using the subways just like Rhino was currently doing...although by now, he'd hopefully be coming up a few streets over from the warehouse using an emergency exit. But why should I take a chance on the surface when I could just take a car? Or...or that Traverse parked nearby, a black piece of Detroit machinery from when GM still made worthwhile SUV's. Right now, the only transportation from my warehouse in case of an emergency was my getaway van and the trailer we had "stolen" from Tombstone last night. A second car would give us a lot more room, and it was a little more towing capable then the brown Dodge van I had picked up used as a church auction a few months prior.

Oh, and luck was smiling on me tonight, because the driver's side door was unlocked. I pulled it open, ready to slide inside and hotwire that sucker, something I could do with my eyes closed...

I really, really, really shouldn't have said 'luck was smiling on me.' It's like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter. The second you say "hey, you're throwing a no-hitter," the guy's gonna lose it.

Well...Lady Luck just decided to flip me the proverbial and literal bird.

I heard the "swoosh" an instant before something slammed into my back with enough force to knock me into the side of the Traverse. My head cracked against the edge of the roof, sending a white flash of light to my eyes as the shock registered to my body. My mask took most of the impact, but the force of the blow was enough to stun me. I staggered backwards a step or two away from the SUV, holding my forehead as I gave into my natural instinct and tried to shake it off. Those few seconds of confusion, though, were exactly what my assailant needed.

Claws dug into my forearms, piercing the quilting and jamming through the contact plates of my outfit. The pain shook me out of my temporary state of shock, but by the time I could react...

...I was airborne.

The ground quickly disappeared under my feet as I looked down, too stunned to speak or cry out in shock and anger. Behind me, a series of steady swishes reached my ears as my attacker flew me and them into the air. The claws latched tightly onto my skin, pinning my arms in place against my body and I felt the warm wetness as blood slowly began to leak down my wrists. The few zombies on the street, if I wasn't being carried by an unknown attacker into the wild blue yonder, would have been comical, their vacant, confused stares following me as I climbed into the sky.

I couldn't even turn to see who was doing this to me, dragging me upwards. We passed the top of the five-story building the pharmacy was housed in as I struggled, but without being able to move my lowers arms at all, it was useless. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could see the flames and plumes of smoke all across Lower Manhattan, but my eyes were fixed firmly on the silver and green gauntlets that had rendered me useless, sharp spikes affixed all along the forearms.

We came to stop, about ten or eleven stories above the street. The swishes were regular and strong, obviously some kind of flying harness used to keep...

Oh, damn it. Flying harness...there was only one guy. But it couldn't be him, no way...

As soon as I heard the voice, I know exactly who it was, without any doubt. "You thought you could hide away! But now, your luck has run out, at my hands," the voice cackled. "And now you're dead, Herman, just like everyone else!"

The claws retracted, and gravity took over as I was flung towards the ground.


	23. Shocker vs the Vulture, Round 1

"Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap" I said, over and over again, as I plunged towards the unforgiving street.

There was no way my suit could absorb the impact. I was looking at several broken ribs at the best case scenario, and death at the worst case. Ok, I could blow a hole in the street, but what was underneath? A sewer? A subway tunnel? A whole bunch of gas pipes? All I'd do was make my fall a little longer and give me a whole lot of debris to slam into...

Wait, there! I saw the flash of red against the curb as I passed the eighth floor of the apartment building, and fired off a blast at the seventh, trying to control my flailing arms and hit a target that, to a body falling at a rate rapidly approaching 9.8 meters per second from seven stories up, wasn't any bigger than an apple. If I missed, I was probably screwed, because even if I lived, I was going to be an easy target, and the guy who was currently trying to kill me would follow up and finish the job without me being able to fight back.

As I hit the fifth floor, I saw the red target explode as the level-two shattered the metal holding it to the concrete. The plume of from the broken fire hydrant shot into the air as I crossed the fourth floor, slamming into my chest as I reached the third floor. The broken water main underneath the hydrant pumped water through the remains of the hydrant, and I managed to catch the middle of it, just off-center. The fountain hit me like a punch to the gut, immediately soaking through to my skin. The force from the water pressure wasn't nearly enough to stop my fall, not even close to it, but it slowed me down enough that, when I slammed into the sidewalk chest first, leading slightly with my left shoulder, nothing seemed to snap in my body.

It still felt like a blow from a jackhammer, though, when I landed. My shoulder screamed out as it took the brunt of the initial impact, followed by the rest of my body collapsing on the now-wet concrete. I could hear myself groan over the rushing water that was cascading back down onto me as I rolled over onto my back to relieve the pressure on my chest. I knew I had to move, soon, before the water soaked into my outfit, and possibly shorting out my contact plates. I wiped the water from my eyepieces, and tried to sit up...

The zombie literally fell on top of me, shoving me back down to the ground as it snapped and tore at my chest. Its' long black hair dripped with pinkish liquid as the water washed the blood from its exposed scalp, a young woman in club wear trying to get my heart. "Get OFF," I growled, lifting my right arm and decking her in the nose. It took another punch to knock her away from me, sending her back to the street and letting me scramble...

...ok, lumber to my feet, since my body was very clearly telling me, "Herman, you just survived an eleven story fall and are dripping wet. You are in no condition to be scrambling anywhere soon." My left shoulder was the most vocal member of that choir, and I gave my body the benefit of the doubt as I grabbed onto a nearby parking meter and pulled myself up. Water fell down the entire length of my outfit even after I stepped out of the hydrant's spray, pinpricks of ice along my arms and chest.

He flew through the waterfall, catching me off guard before I could begin to look for him. Exploding from the spray, an outstretched arm caught me in the waist like a lead pipe. He couldn't have been more than two feet from the ground, but for him, it might as well been a hundred feet. He carried me along, the claws digging into my side as he skimmed the sidewalk between the line of parked cars and apartment buildings with ease. I could see the long, sharp green wing stretching along the underside of his arm and beyond his hand. I was a sideways 'u' on his arm...or probably a reverse 'c'...my feet not even skidding on the ground, he had me flying so fast. I threw an elbow, but didn't come anywhere close to his face. "Damn it, put me the hell down," I yelled as I swung at him again.

"As you wish, Herman!"

Yeah, poor word choice, I know, but at the time, I was being flown through the air by the world's longest shoulder tackle. It SEEMED like a good thing to say at the time, says the guy who only a minute before had tempted Lady Fate. The guy suddenly came to a stop, going from a horizontal flying position to a vertical holding pattern by turning his wings sideways and flapping a few feet into the air. In the process, he released his grip, and I kept flying forward.

Luckily, the sedan I slammed into stopped my momentum.

My back shattered the driver's side window, sending glass all over the front seat, and left a body-sized crumpled dent in the door. At the same time, the very thing I was worried about earlier came to pass. That lovely, familiar sound grated across my ears as the car's anti-theft alarm went off, a mix of beeps, whoops, rising sounds, honks, and horns that guaranteed only the most jaded New Yorker would ignore the noise. Tonight, however, it wasn't an anti-thief device so much as a dinner bell, and any zombie within decaying earshot of the sounds was going to lumber this way in search of a meal.

Granted, at the time, I wasn't consciously thinking about the sound. I was overriding the pain and preparing for what my opponent was going to do next. It was his standard opening gambit – first, drop the victim. If he lives, throw him against something immovable. If he someone survives that, turn him into a human pincushion. As soon as I opened my eyes and leaned forward, groaning under my mask, I saw the sliver streaks flashing through the air from fifteen feet off the ground. I dove to the side as three spikes embedded themselves in the driver's side door, quivering from the impact that had driven them half-way into the steel. Even as I moved, a level two was vibrating through the air at my attacker. He easily flapped his wings and gained altitude, letting my blast past harmlessly under him. It had easily bought me enough time to get to my feet, reposition my bearings, and come to grips with my current situation.

This was dealing with the fact that the Vulture, who couldn't even get out of bed a week ago, was floating in the air above me, cackling with glee at my possible demise.

X

I know exactly what most of you are thinking.

"The Vulture? Really? There's a chance in hell you're going to get your ass handed to you by a guy named THE VULTURE?"

Considering my name is the Shocker, one of my best friends is named the Rhino, and one of the best martial artists in the world is nicknamed "the Leaper," and each and every one of us is fully and utterly capable of kicking YOUR ass, I'd advise you to do the following. Shut up, sit down, and listen close.

Adrian Toomes is an electronics genius. That harness on his back, the whole 'wings and claws' thing? He built it himself, and when he found out his business partner was embezzling from their company, he decided to use that harness to become a professional criminal. The guy's done it all. He terrorized his ex-partner. He's heisted jewelry and payrolls. He's run numbers rackets and gambling organizations. He's taken part in kidnappings. Any crime, any time, that was Toomes' style, whatever made him money and let him terrorize the populace.

You'd think for a guy in his sixties, Toomes would be a pushover. "Oh, gee, he can fly, what else can he do? You'd blow him right out of the sky." Well, for starters, that harness...and let me tell you about this thing. It's like a backpack, but the wings are attached to his arms, so he has to flap his arms like a bird to get anywhere, and he wears it over this ridiculous green pajama suit with a furry white collar. And when a guy who's wearing a brown-and-yellow outfit thinks what you were is stupid, that's saying something. Fashion sense aside though, that harness lets him fly with pinpoint accuracy and precise maneuverability, and all while being deathly quiet, which is what let him sneak up on me a few moments earlier. He doesn't just swoop down and glide back in the air. Vulture dives, cuts your face, and it right behind you doing the same to your back before darting right back up on the air. Oh, and let's keep going about that harness, because it makes him stronger and tougher. He hits like Mike Tyson in his prime, and that's when he's standing still...or flying in place. Add to it those sharp claws and the edges on his wings, and a beating from Toomes ain't pleasant. And he can take a hit like Ali. I've seen Spider-Man deck him clean across the face, and the Vulture just shrugged it off.

The harness is the key...damage it and you're cutting down on his capabilities. Of course, it's like trying to hit the hood ornament of a car that's spinning out of control down a rain-slicked hillside. Drawing a bead on Toomes from range is damn near impossible, and we're talking a direct hit to really break that damn thing. But if I could just get him grounded...

Of course, this is avoiding the big question...how the hell is a guy who had a stroke that paralyzed the left half of his body flying around like a heavily-armed Peter Pan?

About a year ago, Toomes was fighting Spider-Man at some kind of book signing when he suddenly collapsed. And Spider-Man rushes the guy to the hospital...so yeah, good for the wall-crawler. Turns out, Toomes had a massive stroke, and one half of his body wouldn't respond anymore. The last time anyone had heard from it, Toomes had been in an assisted living home, barely able to get around without help from a nurse. And now...

...well, the big question now is...WHY is he up and about, and why is he using that newfound mobility to try and kill me?

"Say your prayers now, Herman! You'll be too busy screaming in a few moments to remember!"

Somehow, I could hear Toomes screeching even about the din of the car alarm going off next to me. A solid level three blast into the car's engine shut the damn thing up, never once taking my eyes off of the Vulture. The alarm's noises faded into distant echoes...

Aw, crap.

...that was soon overtaken by the cries of zombies.

Just like I feared, the alarm was a big neon sign reading "EAT AT HERMAN'S." From where I was standing, I could see the zombies beginning to pour out of the pharmacy I had just escaped from, two or three at a time pushing their way through the front. And all around me, coming out of the narrow alleyways and slowly opening the doors to the brownstones and mid-rise apartment buildings, the living dead were following their instincts. Noise meant humans. Humans meant food. Food meant Herman becoming a snack. Options, options...come on, Herman, think of some options.

The Vulture, though, wasn't gonna give me that kind of time. He lifted a wing, and three more of those sharp blades shot out of his harness, coming directly for me. I lunged to the side...

He was already diving for me. Even as I dodged the spikes, I was pulling backwards as well, attempting to avoid those outstretched claws coming for me. The talons snapped as Toomes closed in, attempting to cut me and drive me into the asphalt. I managed to take a step backwards just as Toomes pulled up, his claws slashing upwards in an attempt to disembowel me. The rush of air against my body paled in comparison to the white hot pain that lanced through my chest as the talons sliced through my costume with ease. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah," I screamed as Toomes pulled away swaths of fabric and part of my outer layer of skin. He swooped back up into the air as vertical lines of warm wetness formed on my chest. Grimacing, one hand held over where the Vulture had cut me, I looked up in the air, tracking the villain as he swung around, coming to a stop over the empty city street, finally getting my first good look at the guy.

Toomes' sharp features moved freely, showing no signs of any damage from the stroke he had a few months back. But that wasn't the only change I could see in Adrian Toomes. The old harness, the one I had spent the last few minutes talking about? Well, looks like I was a bit out of date. Instead of the pajama suit, Vulture floated in mid-air clad in a green metal suit. It didn't look like power armor, at least the sort that Mach-IV or Iron Man wears, but just a suit made out of metal. The ends of his hands were covered with silver gauntlets, with talons on the end of each finger and spikes adorning the forearms. Behind him, silver wings beat a steady pace in the air, attached directly to the back of his armor.

"Looks like you got an upgrade," I said as I brought my fists up. I didn't have a chance in hell of hitting him right now, and Vulture easily avoided the two vibrations I sent through the air.

In response, Toomes clicked the end of his talons at me. Yellow fabric and bits of wiring hung from the claws as they snapped together. "Technology marches on, Herman," Toomes cackled in reply. "A new Vulture deserves a new suit!"

"Well, sorry if I ain't happy to see you up and about right now, Toomes."

The moans of the living dead were slowly becoming more prominent. Risking a quick glance around, I checked my surroundings. The sidewalk I was standing on was a mixed-residential area, with mid-rise apartment buildings right next to single family brownstones. Trees ran along the curb, providing leafy shade during the day and pouring pools of darkness at night. Aside from the small mob flowing from the pharmacy, a few of the buildings lining the street were beginning to show signs of unlife. The ghouls had managed to get the doors open, or the doors were already off the hinges or broken. They slowly shuffled out of the lobbies, down the front steps, towards where the Vulture and I were having our little talk. With a long line of cars parked against the curb, I didn't have a lot of room to move. Options, Herman, focus on options. Gotta get him down on the ground, because as long as he's airborne, I didn't have a hope in hell of plugging him. But once he was grounded, I had the advantage and could pummel away to my heart's content. In order to hit him, I first had to hit him.

"So, how the hell are you up and flying around like a pigeon, Toomes? Last I heard, you couldn't even cook dinner by yourself," I taunted, taking a step to the side between two parked cars to get out onto the relatively wider street...

*SCHTUCK*

I quickly recoiled, yanking my foot away from the shaking steel nail that was embedded six inches deep into the asphalt by a car's front bumper. "It's been such lovely weather lately that I decided it would be a good night for the Vulture to take flight. And indeed, I found my prey with relative ease." Oh, damn, he was actually tapping his fingers together, like one of those old Republic serial villains. "You were a fool to stick your head back out from whatever rock you were hiding under, Herman, and I plan on taking full advantage!"

The nearest zombie was about twenty feet away, its features obscured by the darkness the tree it was under provided. Its arm was already reaching for me as I made another attempt to grab some breathing room. "Full advantage, huh? So why the hell are you trying to kill me, anyway?" I took a few quick steps towards the same space I had gone for earlier as I spoke. "Let me guess, some super secret shadowy supervisor sent you to silence me?"

"Exactly. I've just been waiting for you to get away from that big gray dolt...and after you killed Electro, I decided killing you was personal as well as professional!"

That caused me to pause in mid-step...just long enough for a spike to slam into the ground just where my foot would have been an instant earlier. Damn it, when did Toomes get so fast? But more to the point, the Vulture was working for the guy who tried to get Electro to whack me?"

"Wait, wh..."

The forearm closed around my neck. I felt the cold body press against my back, buffeted slightly from the contact plates firing, and something press down firmly on my shoulder. On instinct, I jammed an elbow backward, feeling the sharp bone connect with flesh. The limb wrapped with my throat loosened its grip, enough for me to slide my hand between the forearm and my skin and shake my assailant off. I spun around, thumb on the trigger of my gauntlet. A level one vibrated through the skull of the zombie who had grabbed me...and I had to quickly fire off a second level one at another ghoul who was lunging towards me. And behind them were a lot more. The mob that I had lured into the pharmacy had finally escaped from my trap, spilling out the front door and onto the side street. How the hell had they gotten so...the trees. They helped play a trick of what meager light there was around me, screwing with my depth perception. Objects in the Shocker's front view were a lot freaking' closer than they appeared. When I finally noticed just how close the horde was to me, they must have noticed my noticing, because their moans got a hell of a lot louder once their prey realized just how screwed he was going to be.

I had taken a step backwards, half-turned to sprint up the sidewalk and at least make it to the end of the block, when sharp talons pressed against my back. "Don't be shy, Herman," the Vulture's voice hissed in my ear. I heard his wings flap, and then the points of pain on my back flared up as, with an assist from his harness, the Vulture shoved me forward, propelling me into the ongoing horde of living dead. "Go say 'hello!'"

I felt hands grabbing at me as I flew past the initial line of corpses. The bastards didn't even give me a chance to crash land before going for the kill. Smacking into the sidewalk chest first, the air left my body, leaving me gasping for breath. I rolled over as best I could, trying to relieve the pressure on my chest in order to grab a good solid breath of fresh air...

The zombie leaned over me, dark gore dripping from its open mouth. Its hands wrapped around my neck, locking behind me as the ghoul tried to lift me to its lowering mouth. "Get off me," I croaked as I lifted my arm and fired a level-one at point blank range. The thing's head snapped backwards and it fell away from me...

...my arm became the center of a tug-of-war. Two separate things had a hold of my forearm, and pulled at potential morsel, snarling in rage at their opponent. "Let go, damn it..."

...even as I pulled my arm free, I was kicking at another ghoul who was attempting to make a snack out of my toes...

The groans grew louder, drowning out my protests. Any direction my eyes darted, there's a hand, pulled into a claw, grabbing, yanking. Fingers brushed against my quilted suit, being flung away by the contact plates just under the outer layers. Every time a hand shot away, another one was right there to take its place. I couldn't even see the night sky above the moaning horde. Red teeth, missing skin, exposed muscle, that's what my eyes beheld. Each hand grabbing at me pushed my mind away from that of a rational human being to something more primal, something more desperate...something more freaking' scared. I did my best to kick and punch, swinging every limb I had, pulling away from one ghoul even as I lashed out at another. During those few precious moments when the fear clouding my mind thinned, I fired a random vibro-blast, the equivalent of "spraying and praying." Level one or two, I wasn't paying attention. This close in, I was hitting them in the legs and chest, not even shoving them backwards due to the sheer weight of numbers keeping the crowd hemmed in around me.

I did catch one, somehow, in the head. It fell to its knees, I caught from the corner of my eye, and sprawled across my chest as it died again. For a few moments, the zombies around me didn't even notice he wasn't one of them anymore, and kept pawing and swiping at me over his body. Eventually, a large ghoul, in the blood remains of a butcher's smock, hissed and used both hands to roll him off of me, exposing my chest where Vulture had cut me earlier. Large, puffy fingers dove right for where the fabric was torn, exposing my skin to the air. With a strangled cry of triumph, the butcher's nails clawed into my body, bypassing my defenses and going right for the warm flesh. I shouted out, pain ripping through my entire body, as I felt him try to pull back a strip of my flesh...

A snapshot in my mind. An image of my chest being yanked open, ribs snapping, my fabric being torn along with muscle and sinew, as hands plunge into my chest cavity. Nails tear at my lungs and intestines, teeth sinking into my liver...

"GET OFF!" I'd like to say I yelled this in a bold, daring manner. Instead, my voice cracked like a teenager going through puberty as I crossed my wrists over my chest. The crowd took advantage and closed in, reaching for me as I jammed my thumbs down on the trigger of both vibro-smashers. My eyes were squeezed shut underneath my mask, fighting the urge to just fire as hands pressed into my suit, pushing past the firing contact plates to pull at the quilted fabric of my suit.

One...two...three...four.

My eyes opened as the level four blasts shot off in different directions, full spread. At such close range, I could see the vibrations distorting the air, waves of energy smashing into the crowd bending over me. The ones trying to tear into me, they flew backwards as my attack slammed their bodies, an overpressure wave flinging them away. Torsos slammed into heads, legs kicking jaws, as I kept my thumbs down. Instead of two blasts, a steady concerto of vibrating air beat from my gauntlets, thumping into the horde. The first line of ghouls...they were stopped by the second line, blocked from being shoved backwards. I was still surrounded, sheer mass keeping me penned in place. I never let up as I climbed to my feet as best I could, rolling on my knees as I moved my gauntlets around me, firing off level-three blasts in every direction. Every time I dropped a ghoul, another one took its place. A section of the undead wall would get blasted backwards while another surged forward. Yeah, I was fighting a losing game...but I bought enough time to get to my feet. And not an instant later, I spun and faced the street. Both triggers thumbed a level four blast, aimed squarely at the thinnest part of the horde, the line of three-to-four stuffed between me and the line of parked cars. The expanding blasts of air exploded between the ghouls packed shoulder-to-shoulder, and even as the hole was forming, I took two steps and dove forward.

Their hands clutched at me, but thanks to the laws of momentum, I slipped through their clutches. I had chosen my rabbit hole well. My dive took me between two parked cars, and even though one of my metal boots clipped a rear bumper, I'd take the somewhat-less-than-graceful (trust me, my landing deserved that many hyphens). I managed to roll through the impact, saving my shoulders the pain, and got to my feet quickly. The parked cars, close to the curb, kept the horde from immediately coming right after me, a solid wall of Detroit...semi-Detroit...steel and glass. The street itself held a few ghouls, nothing I couldn't handle. My immediate concern, now that I had room to work with, was plucking the wings from the Vulture.

I craned my neck, looking up at the leafy trees extending their limbs over the street. Nothing. If Toomes wanted to crash through the canopy at me, I'd hear him long before he got to me. The far side of the street was clear. Behind me...

He was doing it again, but this time, there weren't any obstructions or zombies to block him. Adrian was coming in low and fast. His metal wings were at full extension, the tips inches away from leaving long scratches on the line of parked cars, gliding just feet above the asphalt. Part of me, the engineering part of my mind, stared in wonder as a man who couldn't even take a leak without assistance a few short months ago now glided like an ancient pterodactyl.

The other, much more prominent part of my brain, exclaimed "oh, crap" as I brought up my gauntlets and fired off a salvo of level two blasts in Adrian's direction. The air rippled as they flew towards him...and with barely a twitch of his wings, the Vulture sailed over them, letting my attack pass harmlessly under his torso. Before I could fire off another series, he was in my face, flapping his wings and coming to hover just inches away from me. I raised my arm to fire a point-blank blast, but the sharp tips of his wing cut down across the back of my forearm. Even as the pain registered in my arm, the steel claws on his gauntlets slashed and grabbed at my face, going for my eyes. My other arm came up to defend myself on reflex, and Adrian took advantage, sinking those claws into the meaty part of my limb, slicing past my contact plates and embedding the hooks under my skin. I cried out in pain, cursing as I locked eyes with Adrian. Those beady eyes twinkled with glee, predatory grin underneath, taunting me as he suddenly yanked backwards, flesh and fabric pulled away. Now, I yelled out in pain, blood dripping from the tips of the claws down to the street below. This was hand to hand combat and a guy in his sixties was wiping the damn floor with me!

I clutched at my wounded arm, cursing, as Vulture pulled his arm back one more time, raised above his shoulder for the killing stroke. "And now, Herman, you..."

Using my good arm, I lifted my wounded arm and aimed it right at his face. The poor bastard might have gotten kung fu lessons, but cocking his arm back left his head wide open. His eyes, already wide with the joy of putting me down, got just a little bit wider as he went from "killing Herman" to "getting shot in the face by Herman" in 0.0 seconds flat. Ok, maybe I rounded down, but I wasn't going for numeric accuracy at the moment.

I thumbed the trigger of my vibro-smasher, sending a level 2.0...God damn it...a level two blast directly into Toomes' face at point-blank range. His hands immediately went to his face, clutching as the air exploded around his nose and eyes. "You blinded me," he croaked, as one of his wings lashed out at me over his shoulder. I felt the passing of the sharp edges just as I let loose with a second blast, this one a level-three, and this one aimed at his chest. His power armor was probably protected there, and I didn't expect to cause any damage to his harness. But what it did so was shove Toomes back a few feet, his hands still holding his face, giving me enough room to cock my own arm back...

Now, I ain't ever going to knock walls down with one good punch like Rhino can, but throwing a punch at the same time I'm triggering one of my blasts? The poor schmuck on the other end will wish he got knocked into a wall...look, the analogy sucks, but its there, glean something from it.

I waited for that split second when Adrian pulled his hands back, and then I stepped forward, planting both feet and turning my torso. My arm flew forward, fingers curled into fist, as my thumb pressed down on the button. I could see the air ripple and shimmer around his head, wrapping around his skull as my metal glove connected square and true (with an EXTREMELY satisfying crunch) with his nose. His body turned in mid-air, feet flying towards me as his upper half was propelled backwards. Against the motion of his wings, the Vulture flew a few feet away from me before coming to a halt, crashing onto the ground back first. Adrian moaned, with his head lolling to one side as his wings twitched beside him.

Ok. I could finish this guy off right here and now, and I was sorely tempted. Two idiots trying to kill me two nights in a row, on top of a city full of zombies? Electro I could kind of understand, since I had blundered into his little bank job. But the Vulture had hunted me down, sought me out, and apparently, if what he said earlier was the truth, it was at the behest of the same "boss" who Electro had been working for when Maxwell Dillon still walked among the living. I wanted answers. I had almost died tonight because of Adrian Toomes, and the reward I deserved for living was a chance to beat the hell out of the Vulture and get an explanation for the past two nights.

My chest was on fire, and my arm throbbed with pain, but hey, my legs were still taking orders. I stepped forward to where Vulture lay quietly groaning on the asphalt, but as I closed, more moans began to mix in with Adrian's dismay. Behind him, barely ten feet away, a trio of zombies walked up the street towards the two of us. All three wore the same uniforms, from a private prep school on the Upper West Side. The lead zombie had half a head of lovely blonde hair, the other half having been torn away along with the rest of her scalp. After a moment, I took a few steps backwards, my good arm held at the ready. Alright, here was a good chance. Let these jokes close in on Adrian and claw away at his scrawny ass for a few seconds. Either he fights them off and gives me a wide opening to pummel him some more, or I blow them away and earn his gratitude. Or, of course, he dispatches all three with a swipe of his wing and somehow pulls out a big particle cannon from his pants and disintegrates me in one shot.

Come on, the way my luck has been the past hour, who wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened to me?

I kept my gloves trained on the ghouls, making sure the street was clear behind me. The horde was still penned up on the sidewalk, too many zombies fighting to squeeze through a narrow space between cars parked bumper to bumper. Good. It was just me, Adrian, and these three 'NYC Prep' rejects. The snarls and cries of the sidewalk crowd didn't faze me as the first ghoul reached Adrian. He was still on the ground, facing the sky, his wings flat on the street. One of the blonde's arms reached out...

She stepped on the metal wing, bloody lips pulled back as she stumbled towards me. The other two passed on the opposite side of the fallen Vulture, not paying the moaning villain a single bit of attention. One loafer-clad foot brushed against the green metal of Adrian's foot as the blonde clenched her fingers in my direction, snapping her jaw at me.

"No..." I said softly, taking a step backwards. "No, Adrian's down, he's a meal, he's lunch, he's right there! Why the hell..." That voice, kids, was panic. Instead of taking the time to munch at the Old City Buffet, these three were coming right for me! The blonde was closest, and my blast dropped her with ease. The second went down without trouble too. The third one, though, a younger man, probably still a teenager, with gray skin and perfectly coifed hair, I stepped forward, and grabbed him in the shoulder. The thing didn't snarl, groan, or snap, but quietly leaned forward, mouth wide open before I shoved him backwards. He stumbled, colliding with the Vulture's lower body and falling onto the street. Adrian was stirring, trying to sit up, and this thing could have simply rolled over and taken a bite out of his exposed neck. But instead, it grabbed onto Adrian's body, and used it to get back to a standing position. It never even once looked at Adrian, but focused solely on me.

"God, no..." I stepped away, wondering what the hell was going on. Why wasn't it going after a free and easy meal? Why...why was it still coming after me? I didn't even have time to give these questions any sort of thought as Adrian was on his knees now, staring at me as the zombie went for me. An evil smile was on Adrian's lips as he saw my plight. A flap of his wings pulled him back to his feet as the zombie fell upon me again. This time, I flung him down to the ground, and jammed my foot down onto his chest. Both of its arms wrapped around my boot as I took aim at his head, firing a level one to kill the brain.

"Herman..." I had a shrill voice tease. Looking out, I saw the Vulture crouched on the roof of an SUV. Blood ran down his face, staining the pale skin. "You really should run." Before I could fire a blast at him, the bastard took a step backwards, into the crowd of zombies that pushed and strained to get at me from the sidewalk! He actually dropped down into the horde, and their gazes never once left my body.

How in the...

Things were either moving too fast, or my body was just slowing everything down. The SUV wobbled on its wheels for a few seconds as I watched. It rocked back and forth on it suspension, each time leaning a little further towards the street. By the time the wings flapped, giving Toomes enough force to overturn the SUV, I was already stepping backwards, away from the vehicle. With a loud crash, the SUV landed on its side, bending metal and shattering glass. Behind it, I could briefly make out the green metal form of the Vulture before the view was blocked by the horde of zombies pouring into the wide opening, stumbling towards me, the sheer number causing the group to turn into a flood as they flowed into the street.

"Run, Herman!" I took Adrian's mocking advice to my beating heart, turning and sprinting, ignoring the pain in my arms as they pumped, moving away from the horde towards the narrow alleyway between two brownstones. I saw the streetlights on the other side, and as I barreled into the alley, the shrill voice of the Vulture cried into the Manhattan night.

"RUN, HERMAN! I WANT YOU TO DIE TIRED!"


	24. Shocker vs the Vulture, Round 2

Some small part of Lady Luck cut me a break. Nothing blocked my retreat down the alleyway. No trash cans, no gates, no pipes, and no living dead. I burst out into the next street, slamming into a parked car hands-first to bring myself to a halt. My arm protested my poor choice of deceleration, a bolt of pain shooting up towards my shoulder. I struggled for breath underneath my mask, panting from the all-out sprint I had just undertaken, legs burning, shoulders starting to ache from the salvo of vibro-blasts I had let loose in such a short time span. This street was lined on both sides with row houses, much like the previous one, cars parked tightly together by their now-dead owners.

Those owners were probably the zombies staggering about. Drawn out of their homes by the ruckus a block over, they were spread out on the street trying to make their way to where the action had just been. Some of them were at the ends of the blocks, turning down a cross-street, but a few were still stumbling down the middle. They immediately turned to face me, but I had a second to catch my breath and try to figure...

"Keep running, Herman."

Three floors up, his talons clutching the metal railing of a balcony, the Vulture loomed over me. The sharp tips of his metal wings pointed at me, ready to fire deadly spikes at a moment's notice. "Miles to go, before you sleep all too briefly and get right back up again."

A shot at him from this distance would just be a waste. I took a deep breath and took off again, crossing the street towards another gap between row houses. The alleyway this time was a little wider, made for cars to squeeze through. Again, it was free of obstruction and I sprinted straight through. I didn't slow down as I crossed the next street, not even checking for the living dead, just gunning right for the next alleyway, this one wide enough for a delivery truck. I ran underneath the metal fire escapes bolted onto the side of the buildings. Halfway down the alley, a metal trash dumpster rested near a brick wall, the top portion wide open and leaning against the building. I passed it, but then quickly doubled back. There was just enough room for me to squeeze behind it. Ignoring the stench of three-day old garbage, I stepped into the space, pressing my back against the wall and sighing with relief as I did so. The open top blocked a view from above, and for the moment, the alleyway looked clear on both sides. Even though it was tinged with decay and rot, my lungs gratefully accepted the oxygen I was gulping down.

Something swished overhead, the Vulture probably cutting through the air above me. I knew I was out of sight, but I pushed back against the wall anyway, willing myself to vanish. No luck, though, but after a few seconds, the normal sounds of the burning city were prevalent again.

Ok...I had a few seconds to recover, and try to figure out what the hell was going on here. I had shot Toomes at point blank range, broke his nose, and managed to ground him for a brief moment. And it didn't seem to faze him. The guy, like I said before, was on the downside of sixty years old, and unless your name is Tony Stark, no suit of power armor is going to reverse a stroke and give you the hand-to-hand capability that was once your weakness. And no suit of power armor is going to hide your scent, or heartbeat, or whatever the hell it was that zombies used to track the living. Abner Jenkins himself had told me that even in his power armor, the dead still came after him, like they knew there was a soft gooey center underneath the hard shell. I hadn't been hallucinating. Those ghouls had walked right past him to come at me. Granted, I was probably much more delicious then Toomes. I was definitely less stringy.

So what the hell? Nanotechnology? Magic? Sheer willpower? Drugs? Something dragged Toomes off his couch and threw him back into the air...or someone. Whoever this guy, this "boss" was that had hired Electro and now sent the Vulture after me, he had either juiced Toomes up worse than Barry Bonds, or gave him power armor on par with Mach-IV or freaking' Iron Man. Or maybe Toomes made a deal with the Devil...

...nah. Only idiots make a deal with the Devil, even if all they wanted was one more day.

Another swish passed over the top of the container. Before it had faded away though, a second sound, knives cutting through the air, echoed through the alleyway. "Where are you, Herman," I heard a voice ask from directly above me before another swish reached my ears. "I told you to keep running...how dare you try to hide."

Gently, I probed at the wound on my arm while Toomes flew overhead. I couldn't even touch it without gritting my teeth in pain. If the blood had stopped flowing, I couldn't tell in the darkness behind the dumpster, but I could still flex and move all five fingers. My gloves still functioned, even after the soaking they had taken from the fire hydrant that broke my fall.

Ok, Herman, let's break this down. Adrian is hell bent on killing you, or getting zombies to do it for you. He's strong, he's quick, and apparently ghouls completely ignore him. And there's no way I could outrun him. Toomes would just swoop down and pluck me off the ground. I could get underground somehow, but I had no damn clue where I was...in any case, it was a damn long run back to Houston Street, and I'd be exposed the entire time.

As long as he was airborne, the chances of me shooting him down were pretty damn small. I had gotten lucky earlier when he insisted on getting close to me and swipe, but that was just it: luck. Toomes was clever, he wasn't going to be that stupid again. And he knew I wouldn't be that dumb again and pass up a shot to finish him off.

A sound above me...this time, metal on metal, and the soft sound of metal wings curling around a warm body. "You're close, Herman...the ghouls are restless, but not agitated. They know you're here, but they don't know where." A low cackle, scraping on my ears. "Isn't this turnabout? You striding the streets like a colossus, an Internet darling, an inspiration, but now you're hiding like a rat."

God, I'd give real money if he'd just shut up.

"It's funny, isn't it...you're injured, bleeding, alone, against a superior opponent. You're not the Shocker anymore, Herman. No, no." I could see his bald head shaking back and forth. "No, Herman, you're not the Shocker. You're that damnable wall crawler who never knows when to quit. But unlike Spider-Man, Herman...well, this is just a brand new day, with new rules. And rule number one is, the hero doesn't walk away."

Did...oh, that bastard just compared me to Spider-Man.

Screw that, he's going down.

Alright, Herman. You need to get hand-to-hand with him. To do that, you need to somehow ground him. To do that, you need to get your hands on that harness on his back and blast the hell out of it.

Great, I have a plan. Now how the hell do I pull it off?

"You know, Herman...vultures, as a rule, don't just see the dead, but those about to die. It's why the birds hover above the thirsty, the hungry, and the hopeless. It's why I see you, Herman. I know you're here."

He's right above me...with a trash can lid and who knows how many stories of fire escape to absorb any blasts I throw. Even if I stepped to the sides, the metal railings would still be in my way. And I'm in an alleyway, without all that much room to move around and dodge those damn spikes of his. Damn it, damn it, damn…ok, calm down, Herman. You needed to hide and catch your breath. Bad luck he decided to roost here…unless he knows you're down here. And he's just waiting you out.

I craned my head slightly, peeking out over the closest side of the dumpster. I could just make out the tip of a metal wing a few stories above me. Ok. I could step out, throw a blast, and run for it while he's recovering…no, damn it, it's too far to the end of the alley. I'd be a sitting duck.

Metal clicking above me, as Toomes shifted his weight. I pressed my back flat against the wall again, eyes trying to see through the lid above me. I shifted my weight to my other foot to relieve some pressure as I tried to figure out my next move. That move had to be getting out from behind this dumpster. Since I couldn't walk through walls, I craned my head again, peeking around the other side of the garbage container. At the end of the alley I had run through, a few ghouls had followed me, or were attracted by the taunting voice of the Vulture.

"Herman…" he said in a sing-song voice. "Come out and play…"

As best I could in the small space, I turned around as slowly as I could. The moans were just starting to reach my ears as I managed to put my back flat against the metal dumpster. "Hear that? They're coming to get you, Herman…"

I had only one shot at this. I put my good hand against the dumpster, and lifted one foot. It took some tricky balancing, but I managed to do it. Alright, Herman…don't screw this up. One…two…

Gritting my teeth, I used my bad arm to shove at the lid above me. The hole in my forearm complained like it was at a town hall meeting, but the lid swung upwards, giving me a clear line of fire straight up. My eyes glanced at the fire escape above me. Through the metal gratings and steps, the steely gaze of the Vulture was beginning to turn in my downward direction. The lid clanged shut even as I shoved backwards, pushing away from the wall with my leg and pressing against the dumpster with my back and good arm. The city of New York must have sprung for a brand new dumpster with non-rusted or clogged wheels, as my efforts easily pushed it out into the middle of the alleyway. I stepped with it, both arms taking aim at their target, my thumbs holding down for a solid level-four blast. Toomes had been perched on the fourth floor railing of a five story fire escape, and as I stepped into his unobstructed view, he began to spread his wings, leaning forward slightly to glide down and make his attack.

If I had shot at him now, I would have probably missed, even if I aimed low. The altitude was enough for a skilled flyer like the Vulture to adjust. But I wasn't aiming for him.

I was aiming for the fire escape.

Fire escapes are an architectural afterthought, a simple staircase-and-railing system bolted onto the side of a building in case of emergency made out of thin metal railings and grated floors. You always hear, every summer, about some Brooklyn or Queens party that ends with a whole bunch of people overloading a fire escape and causing it to break away from the building and crash down onto the street. They're not long-term load bearing structure. Too much weight could break it. Or, in this case, two level four vibro-blasts.

The recoil from my bad arm's shot was like sticking a finger into an electrical outlet, but the blast landed true, smashing into the third floor's railing and causing it to buckle. Toomes hadn't quite let go of the railing let to swoop down at me, and the talons on his feet pulled at the not-quite-fully-attached fire escape. It groaned as it pulled just a bit away from the building...by itself, this wasn't going to do much.

But when the level-four slammed into the fifth floor railing and jarred it loose, suddenly the fire escape had lost its top support and its middle support. That, boys and girls, is when the proper application of forces comes into play. Without the fifth-and-third floor to hold the fire escape into place, the primary motion of the fire escape was being applied by two things – the claws of Adrian Toomes as he leaned forward, maybe not quite grasping what I had just done, thinking I had missed him, and gravity. And gravity always wins.

I could hear the mortar give way as the fire escape ripped itself from the side of the building. For me, time slowed down as the whole structure gave way, creaking and groaning like a horde of the living dead, and all the noise the falling fire escape was making was definitely going to attract a whole bunch of those things to here. But that was later, this was now.

Above me, Toomes had taken flight, flapping his wings once to get a little bit more height...and his head cracked right into the steps with a lovely "thwack." Caught off-guard, Toomes flapped his wings again. This time, he managed to gain air, but instantly came to a halt as he bumped into the steps that had gone from the fifth floor to the roof. "What is this," he exclaimed as his wings clanged and brushed against the falling fire escape. He thrashed with arms, trying to free himself from the structure, but by now, his upward motion bumping him into the steel was the only thing keeping it from pulling completely away from the building.

I admit, there are times I really like what I do for a living. And one of them is when a plan bears better results that I had hoped for. All I wanted was to buy some time for me to run and think of a better plan. But now, Toomes was trapped...oh, God, I was about to say 'trapped like a bird in a cage.' He kept banging his head against the fire escape, and his wings were scraping and tearing at the metal. Given enough time, sheer force and the lift provided by his harness would get him free.

Instead of giving him that time, I stepped right underneath where he thrashed and fired off several level-two blasts in rapid succession. Instead of holding down the trigger for a steady stream, this was a scattershot salvo, each one just slightly off. I had him pinned, but I didn't want to damage the railing enough for him to fly away. Each arm, aching and one of them oozing just a bit of blood, was pointed just to the side of the Vulture's body. I prayed for one good shot, just one connecting where I needed it to connect, as the air vibrated and exploded around his torso. His hands came up in front of his face, my blood still on the talons as he tried to defend himself. Come on, come on...

It was when Toomes had almost freed himself that one of my shots hit home. One of his wings, his right/my left, had full extension, batting away some of the metal and bending it out of shape. Stretched out so far, for a brief moment, the connection between his wing and the flying harness he wore was exposed, just as my blast slammed home. The resulting vibrations tore into the hydraulics, sending a spray of fluid and sparks into the air. Instantly, the right wing crumpled, losing all power and mobility as the metal folded inward a bit, pointing towards the ground and pulling the Vulture along with it.

This is the best analogy I can use right now, so bear with me. Ever see a helicopter lose its rear rotor, and as a result, the whole thing goes into a flat spin that's damn impossible to recover from? Well, proverbially tilt that imagine on its proverbial ear and you might get what's happening here to Adrian. He's got one wing that's still flapping away, trying to get him airborne. And he's got a dead wing that's not giving him any lift at all, meaning that only force that's acting on it is the force of gravity. Again, I'm not familiar with the Vulture's harness. Is it like a bird's wing, strong but hollow on the inside? Or is it solid metal and it's the lift generating by each flap of the wing that keeps him airborne?

The way that wing's pulling him to Earth? I'm guessing it's a solid wing.

It happened quickly enough that Toomes can't quite recover. He fell out of the fire escape "trap" wing-first. The broken/shut-down piece of his harness dragged him down, and his other wing couldn't make up for the loss of lift. First his wing, and then the rest of his body, crashed onto the floor of the alleyway. Now, I'll give Toomes credit, if there was one guy in this alleyway who could handle a crash landing, it was him. He managed to turn his body so he was falling chest first. Both hands shot out, and he curled up his knees. The power armor he was wearing took the impact for him as he landed on all fours, one wing crumpled while the other curled up, ready to lash out...

My foot connected square with his jaw. I walked right up to him, and kicked like I was playing for Red Bull New York, my metal boot slamming home. His head snapped back, and his arms went limp, his entire body sliding to the alley's surface. The good wing was still flapping slightly as I took another step forward towards the fallen Vulture, trying to...

The good wing sliced through the air. I barely leaned backwards in time, the sharp edge whipping just past the edge of my mask. Toomes was on his hands and knees, breathing hard from my kick to his face, but I'll say this for the bastard, he sure as hell wasn't giving up. He clicked his talons together as he got up on one knee, blood dripping from his nose, and an angry mask locked on his face. "Alright, Herman, it's time to show you this old bird still has some teeth."

Bold, brash, and brave. The Vulture was definitely standing his ground. Even with one wing, he was still dangerous and fully capable of kicking my ass.

So I blasted him in the face.

Adrian's skull took the full brunt of the level-two. He staggered back, crossing his metal gauntlets in front of my face just in time to ward off a second blast, but the impact still drove him backwards. Each shot, and I was just rattling them off, pushed him further and further back, a barrage that he couldn't counter. His wing lashed out, trying to slice into me, but my ass was staying well out of range. I poured it on, my arms feeling fatigued as shot after shot exploded around him. Power concerns? Hey, this time, I brought spare power packs. I could do this all night long, if it wasn't for all the noise we were making. It was just like ringing the lunch bell for the dead.

First things first, and that was putting Vulture down for good. Every blast was a step backwards for the guy who just tried to kill me, and eventually, his back hit a brick wall. My assault had driven him against one of the buildings lining the alleyway. He still had his arms crossed in front of his face, lashing out with his good wing, keeping me away with wild slashes. I had one eye on the end of the alleyway, the closest opening, which was slowly filling up with shambling forms. Already they were too close for comfort as I heard a low moan, several different voices mixing together as they closed in on the source of the ruckus Vulture and I had made.

"Alright, Adrian, I got you dead to rights." Both of my fists were raised, thumbs on the triggers, aimed squarely at him from a distance of about ten feet. "Give up and start talking and I won't shatter every bone in your body."

"Harumph." You're kidding me. Who the hell still says "harumph?" "Go ahead, Herman. I can endure anything you throw at me. You'll never defeat me before the ghouls trap you in this alleyway."

"Yeah, you and me both," I countered.

"And you and I both know," he sneered, "that doesn't bother me in the least. The worst that happens, I get blood on my outfit while they're tearing you limb from limb."

Damn it, he's right. They'll probably ignore him again...ok, ok, worry later, finish this job now. "Last chance, Toomes, to sing."

"Last chance, Herman, to run." He clicked his claws together, still protecting his face from me. "Run, and we can continue this dance another night. I'll keep a spot open on my card for you."

I sighed loudly. "Adrian, I rea..." And then I charged in, mid-sentence, hoping to catch him off guard. Stupid, yeah, but hopefully it came out of nowhere enough to take this jerk by surprise. I got two steps off before that damn wing whipped through the air, the point driving forward like a stake going for a vampire's heart. I lunged forward, ducking slightly, and felt the wing pass over my back, the razor tip barely missing me. But I was where I wanted to be, inside his wing's "reach." This close to the Vulture, with my chin out, I was exposed to an attack by his actual limbs. One good swipe with his claws and you could call me "One-Eyed Schultz." But just like I had hoped, Adrian kept his arms crossed to protect his face from my vibro-blasts. Not a bad plan, it had served him well this far. But it had one flaw that I was going to exploit like a drunken ESU sorority student.

My fist came up as I lifted upwards with my body, and I drove an uppercut right into the exposed chin of Adrian. No blast, no trigger, just a hard, heavy blow right to a vital point. I could feel my knuckles impact his jaw, and deep down inside, I smiled. Throwing around blasts is well and good, but sometimes, there is nothing like a well placed punch, and this one was squared on the money. Adrian's head rocked backwards, the crown of his head lightly smacking into the brick wall behind him as I followed through, cocking back my left hand and launching a short, vicious jab. This time, the entire back of his head bounced off the wall, caught between the rock of my fist and the hard place of a brick building. Adrian's eyes rolled backwards in their sockets, and his body went limp, both his limbs and his deadly wing slumping towards the ground. He slid down the wall a bit before toppling forward, smacking into the pavement of the alleyway. He didn't move, even after I poked him a few times with my boot. My desperate plan had worked. The Vulture was unconscious on the ground, no longer a threat.

One more blast smacked his head into the brick with a sickening thwack.

Just to be sure.

X

Adrian's power armor was lighter then it looked. I expected to have to drag the dumpster over to him, but when I pulled him away from the brick wall he was out cold against (after checking for a pulse, of course. The last thing I needed was him snapping his teeth at me), it was almost like he wasn't wearing anything at all…

…shudder.

If it wasn't for the moaning zombies at both ends of the alleyway, the engineer in me would be asking every question under the sun. Polymers? Anti-gravity discs? It was almost a shame, from a professional point of view, to roll Adrian's lump body over onto the ground and fire several vibro-blasts at the joints of his metal wings. It took a few shots to sever each connection, a shower of sparks followed by leaking hydraulic fluid as each wing fell onto the pavement. All he had left now, once he woke back up, would be his claws and talons, and I was banking on them not being strong enough to carve their way through thin walls of metal.

I hooked him around the neck, and dragged his body over to the waiting garbage dumpster. Above me, the fire escape creaked as gravity slowly did its work, swaying slightly as it rested between the two buildings. One good shot would bring the whole structure crashing to the ground, which is exactly what I was hoping for. With one hand, I flipped open the dumpster's lid before using my aching arms to toss Adrian inside. A soft landing greeted him as he landed on several days worth of refuse. I would not want to be him once he woke up, because a trash dumpster filled with refuse decomposing over two days probably smelled worse then Mole Man.

I slammed the lid shut with a clang. Bending down, it took me a few seconds to find what I was looking for. The zombies coming from the near side of the alleyway were maybe fifty feet away as I picked up a thick metal bolt from the ground. It used to help hold the fire escape against the side of the building, but now it was going to keep the Vulture under lock and key. Making sure both lids were closed, I shoved the metal bolt into the padlock hole, jamming it in as tight as I could. It refused to go in at first, and I had to force it with a few smacks of my palm, but eventually, with a reluctant scraping sound, the bolt stayed put, acting like a Masterlock and preventing both lids from opening up. A metal jail cell. Yeah, maybe Adrian could cut his way through the plastic lids, but I had that covered.

My arms protested, but luckily for me…I'm really damn wary of using the word 'luck' and all assorted nouns, adjective, and adverbs…the dumpster was still easy to move, even with the added weight of the Vulture inside. I pushed it away from where the fire escape towered overhead, towards the near end of the alleyway. The crowd of undead marched almost in time, lurching with the same speed and cadence, any and all limb damage the same across the board. A solid line of ghouls stretched across the alley from wall to wall. Good, it'll make it easier to break through them.

That one solid shot came from my right gauntlet, and just like I had expected, the fire escape came crashing down, slamming onto the ground in a squeal of bending metal and cutting me off from any zombies coming from that end of the alley. In front of me, the noise and clatter agitated the crowd already coming my way. Well, they wanted to come get and me, and who the hell was Herman Schultz to disappoint the millions…thousands…hundreds…dozens…about eight of the Shock's fans and not go over to them?

I will neither confirm nor deny that I've watched professional wrestling, save for the fact that it's the one thing on TV you can't really bet on in the Bar With No Name and hence doesn't lead to frowned-upon bar brawls and property damage.

The dumpster led the way as I jogged down the alley, pushing it in front of me. The sharp pains in my ripped arm had quieted down to a dull roar, and the smooth ride the dumpster was taking didn't send jolts of agony up my limbs. I kept a steady pace, my hands always on the narrow end of the dumpster, keeping it in the center of the alley and not drifting towards the walls. The voices of the living dead didn't change. No alarm was raised, no sounds of joy from approaching prey, and no curious groans of "what in the hell?" They just kept that needing moan as I approached them, dumpster first. In the last ten feet, I kicked it up to a sprint, the exhaustion in my arms a dull burn. I did my best to "aim" the dumpster at a small space in between the two center-most ghouls, as much as one can aim a wheeled New York city trash can.

I felt an impact shudder through the dumpster as it slammed into the line of zombies. Doing my best to keep moving, I shoved the dumpster as hard as I could, never letting up. The dumpster wavered slightly, veering off to the left. And then it hit something on the ground, stalling for a moment until I gave a strong push with both arms to get over…well, it was one of the zombies I had smacked with the dumpster.

With that shove, I was past the line of zombies. Though, it wasn't really a line now, but a group of zombies trying to turn in place and grab the dumb idiot who was trying to push a dumpster through them.

At this point, I'll take questions. Yes, the black-haired girl in the front row. You want to know what I was thinking with THIS plan? Ok, this one's…a little off the charts, I admit, even for an improvisation. The way I saw things at that moment in time, there was two immediate matters that required my attention. One, getting out of the alleyway with my body parts fully intact and unchomped. Two, interrogating Adrian Toomes and trying to figure out who was trying to kill me. I needed to find a safe place to talk to the Vulture. I could have dragged him up to a rooftop and talked to him, especially since he turned out to be a hell of a lot lighter than I had initially thought. Having him slung over my shoulder, climbing a fire escape, put me at a major disadvantage if he woke up. One good swipe with his claws and I'd really be a spineless super villain. Hence, the dumpster. Not only is it a portable prison, but it makes an awesome battering ram, perfect for smashing down zombies and getting the heck out of the alley.

I didn't feel any hands clawing at my back, arms, or legs for that matter, as I broke through the line and kept going. Looking back? Not this guy, I kept going for all I was worth. I could make out the end of the alleyway a few feet ahead, and seconds later, I was out on a residential street. A quick look at a nearby street sign told me exactly where I was. Sullivan Street, on the north end of Greenwich Village. And a quick look up and down the street showed a distinct lack of the living dead. As I turned the dumpster, a metallic glint on the asphalt caught my eye. Several brass shell casings were scattered along the road. Five bucks says the Army had already swept this block, which bode pretty well for me. I just had to find the right place to hole up and give old Adrian the third freakin' degree.

Alright, now to find that place. I turned north and pushed the dumpster up that way. Over the squeaking wheels and the faint moans of the roadblock I had shoved past, I couldn't hear a peep from inside the dumpster. Either Adrian was still out cold, or he was playing possum. Either way, as long as he wasn't trying to get out, that gave me time to figure something out.

The end of the block spilled out onto West 4th Street. To the east, a few cars were scattered through the road, but I didn't see any movement among the motionless autos. To the west, more of the same. After a few seconds of not seeing any movement, I took a more active stock of the area. West 4th Street was the southern boundary to Washington Square Park. Ever see that Will Smith movie with the infected? This is where his house was. The big arch, the fountain? The only difference was the park and streets weren't filled with a screaming horde of vampires trying to get at lucky me. The park itself, obviously, was deserted. Usually, Washington Square was a mix of tourists, buskers, and students from nearby New York University. Right now, the streetlamps were still burning, and under the trees and branches, I didn't see anything. More brass shell casings were scattered on the sidewalk and stone walkways throughout the park, pointing to the Army having cleaned out the park at some point. Makes sense, clear out NYU and evacuate the students.

The dumpster bumped up onto the sidewalk as I pushed it into the park proper. My eyes scanned all around me, especially the pools of darkness provided by the trees. No movement. There were a few low-level moans from nearby, quiet enough that I couldn't quite pinpoint where they were originating from. Fine by me, if they were that quiet, they probably wer…

As I came up to the arch, I saw it, stopping immediately in my tracks. Off to the side of the marble arch that was the trademark to Washington Square, a blackened pile smoked slightly, smoldering from the top and along various spots throughout its surface. From where I stood, I could make out individual bodies, curled and contorted from the intense heat they had experienced. The filters in my nose blocked the sure stench of ashy flesh, but I still felt my stomach turn over slightly. One of the garden spots of New York, used as an impromptu crematorium. Again, it made sense. Pull bodies from the residential areas surrounding the park and burn them in an open space where there's nothing other than the stone arch to catch on fire.

Next to the pile, a small tractor trailer, emblazoned on the side with an advertisement for Budweiser, stood with its rear doors wide open. Still keeping the dumpster in front of me, and still not hearing any protests from Adrian, I pushed over to the truck. The light from the bright lamps surrounding the arch illuminated the first few feet of the trailer, enough for me to make out the small blood stains that dotted the metal floor and some of the walls. A quick check with my mask's low-light vision showed nothing left inside, just a few more blood stains from the cargo this trailer had hauled before being abandoned.

Perfect. A plan was forming in my mind, and even as I worked out the details, I was already moving the dumpster into place.


	25. Clipped Wings

"Hey, Aleskei, are you there?"

After a few seconds, the big guy's voice clicked back. "Yeah, Herman," his voice spoke into my ears. "Where the hell are you? Are you ok?"

"I'm peachy," I said from my lofty perch. "You guys make it back in one piece?"

"Didn't see a single zombie, Herman. Heard them, though." Through the hint of static, I heard the concern in his voice. "We took the side tracks past a couple of the stations. We could hear em, walking around on the platforms. Ain't the worst part, though."

"What happened?"

"The subway's starting to flood. Had about an inch of water on the tracks near the warehouse. Damn near shocked myself when I stepped in it. We had to ditch early and walk home on the streets. Nothing I couldn't handle. Everyone's home safe and sound, except for you."

"Ah...yeah," I responded. "There's no one watching the sump pumps. A couple of those things break down and the water's gonna seep in, especially down near the river. Ok, I'll definitely hotwire a car when I'm done."

"You ain't done yet?" Rhino's voice had a bit of alarm, and a bit of 'oh, now what' on it. My friend knew me all too well. "What happened?"

"I had a run in with someone. The Vulture decided to take a swipe at me while I was in Hell's Kitchen. I'm fine," I said, cutting him off, "don't worry. I'm gonna hotwire a car in a few minutes and head back once Adrian wakes up."

"Adrian? Why the hell would...you think it's tied to Electro trying to off you?"

"Probably. I'm gonna ask him as soon as he wakes up."

"You managed to get the stuff you wanted at least?"

"Yep, and it's all in plastic anyway. Nothing broke that I could tell. Look, I'll fill you in when I get back, alright?"

"Yeah. Hey, Herman...told you this was gonna happen. I should never have let you go off by yourself, after last night."

I managed to chuckle at his remarks. "Write this date down, Aleksei. The day you were smarter than me."

"Hell, Herman, I've had plenty of those. Remember when we went to that after hours club that one night? And you insisted on going home with that one girl even after I told you she had a history? You had to keep going to the free clinic for shots..."

Below me, the lid of the dumpster twitched.

"Adrian's waking up," I said. "I'll get back to you once I'm on the move, big guy." After disconnecting from Aleksei, I took a final swig from the bottle of water I had found in the cab of the truck before tossing the empty container away. The plastic bottle bounced off the head of one of the zombies clawing at the metal side of the trailer before being lost underfoot. Hey, it's the end of the world, do I look like I give a hoot about recycling?

The lid twitched again, as the poor sucker I had trapped inside pushed upwards. The lid only had a give of a few inches before being stopped by the bolt I had jammed in the way. After a few seconds, the lid began to rattle, as Adrian pushed and shoved against it. I didn't know how much room he had inside to move around, but trying to get leverage while standing or lying in a pile of garbage, well, physics didn't quite favor him. The lid shook in place as Adrian banged against it. Over the moans of the living dead reaching up at me, I could hear him cursing as he tried to shove his way out of what couldn't have been a pleasant smelling prison.

The banging and rattling stopped, but the cursing didn't. As I watched, a single talon poked through the black plastic lid, and started to claw its way down through the rubber material. I took aim with one of my vibro-smashers as soon as the metal claw appeared. A level one from close range brought a squawk of indignation from the guy trapped inside, and the claw quickly pulled back.

"Herman," a muffled voice called out. "You're still hanging around?"

"You'll have to speak up," I shouted back. "I can't hear you over the crowd."

"Yes...so not only did you pass on an opportunity to flee, but you've allowed yourself to be surrounded by zombies. This doesn't strike me as the best of plans, Herman, especially for a meticulous plotter such as yourself."

"Well, it's hard to see the big picture when you're trapped inside a garbage can," I taunted. "Trust me, this works out for the best for all involved not named Adrian Toomes. You and I are going to have a little chat, Adrian, and if you want to get out of there anytime soon, you're gonna answer my questions, starting with who the hell wants me dead."

The cacophony coming from the crowd I had attracted, sitting exposed on the roof of the trailer, seemed to die down a bit, as a gravelly chuckle answered my comments. "Alright, Herman, I'll play along with your little game of Twenty Questions. Let me go first. How's your arm?"

The level one I sent into the lid was enough to cause Adrian to curse, but not enough to move the dumpster from its position flush against the side of the trailer. Surrounding the dumpster, reaching up at me, hands futilely slapping at the sides of the trailer, about a dozen zombies, mouths wide open, eyes wide had gathered. No worries on my end. My ass was well out of arms' reach and easily with range of blasting the dumpster. A good shock of vibrating air would be like ringing a bell right outside Adrian's ears. Not pleasant in anyway, and a good way to keep him locked up and not trying to claw his way out.

"Arm's fine," I lied, wincing as I shook off the recoil. Even my good arm ached from the evening's activities. Maybe Fred's wonder pills were wearing off. No matter, no time for distractions. "So, Adrian, why the hell does your boss want me dead?"

"Why the hell do you think, Herman," he spat as a reply. "You screwed him over twice, cost him a fortune in gold and other hard goods, and took the life of one of his best people. Do you know how annoying that is? You've gone beyond a fly in the soup to a full-blown hindrance. When he wanted someone to take you out, I volunteered in a heartbeat. And I would have gotten away with it, too...lousy Shocker." I could make out a deep sigh thanks to my audio enhancers. "You killed Max, Herman. Max was my friend. I wanted revenge, and I'm still going to get it, somehow."

"Christ...I didn't kill Electro, Adrian. That was the Punisher. Do I look like the type to use a damn gun? Max got shot, Adrian."

"Semantics. You were there, Herman. You were the one who beat him up and tied him to that chair, and left him to die. If it wasn't for you, Castle would never have gotten the drop on him. He was helpless. You were an accessory, Herman, might as well pulled that trigger yourself as far as I'm concerned."

I resisted the urge to fire off another blast. "I didn't know the Punisher was out there, Adrian. And even so, I was giving Max a chance to cut himself loose while I gave myself a...you know, no. No," I said, raising my voice a little. "I'm not going to play this game. Electro tried to kill ME, Adrian. What was I supposed to do, just roll over and die?"

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what you should have done! Things would have been so much easier for all involved."

"Sorry, Adrian. I kind of like breathing."

The lid suddenly jumped into the air, rattling as Adrian pushed against it from below. It bulged slightly as it was blocked by the bolt, but it was never in danger of popping loose. "Let's clear the air right now, Herman. I will never tell you anything you want to know. You're playing way out of your league at the moment, above a level you can't possibly even imagine. You're a pawn, Herman, a simple pawn who insists on crossing the board and becoming a queen."

"Brave words coming from the guy stuck in a garbage can." I adjusted my gauntlet's aim as I spoke. "Talk, Adrian. Who's your boss, and what's his plan?"

"Herman, Herman, Herman...trust me, I'm much, much more scared of him than I am of you. You can throw those little airbursts all you want. Make them as loud and buzzing as you wish. They tickle compared to what misery my boss would inflict upon my person. Such is the price of treachery."

"What about the price of failure, Adrian?"

"That cost is more about wounded pride then wounded flesh. Mockery, I can endure better then pain..."

A level-one cut off his statement. "I don't believe that for a second, Adrian, but I'm willing to experiment and find out."

"Do your worst, Herman. I will divulge nothing."

"We'll see about that, Adrian. There's just one thing I want to know, man, and that's a name. Where this guy is, what his plan is, who else is with him, I really don't expect you to spill old that. All I need is a name, Adrian, and then I'll walk away and you can get out of there."

Even as the zombies clawed at the side of trailer, yellow teeth snapping at my leg dangling above them, it was Adrian's silence that made the most noise. "Just a name, Adrian, or else I can keep you in there all night long," I spoke after a few moments.

"Hope you had a big dinner, Herman," he taunted in reply.

I thought I could play the waiting game. Making sure I wasn't in any danger of falling off of the roof, I sat there, one foot quietly tapping against the side, eyes locked on the lid of the dumpster. Two more ghouls joined the crowd while time passed, three more arms now reaching towards me, even though I was well out of reach. It was a mixed horde that wanted a piece of me, young, old, male, female, and I thought, under the graying flesh, I could make out black, white, Hispanic. The worst was...she couldn't have been older than six years. One pigtail, stained with dark spots, hung down from the side of her head, while on the other side, her scalp had been ripped clean away. She didn't hiss or moan like the rest of them, however. Her stare was neutral, almost bored, as her tiny hand barely reached the bottom of the truck, even as next to her, the woman clawing at the metal, leaving trails of dead skin, looked like an extremely pissed off Iggy Pop.

How many zombies were there on Manhattan? There were 1.5 million people living on the island. Let's say...200,000 of them were off-island when everything went to hell and didn't make it back. That left 1.3 million. How many managed to evacuate once the crap hit the fan? I'll be optimistic, and say 100,000 got off the island before everyone else was told to get ON the island. 1.2 million, that's our hard number. And let's throw my optimism right out the window and say 3/4th's of those people died. Could be zombie attacks, could have been murder, could have been people self-nominating for a Darwin Award. 900,000 dead people. And maybe a quarter of them, and that's picking my optimism back off the ground, dusting it off, and taking it out for a nice dinner, died in a way that they ain't coming back. 675,000 zombies. Shelling out for the lobster for my optimism, let's say in the course of the past few days, the army and the superheroes, along with the supervillains who decided to pitch in, half those ghouls got put down for good. 337,500 zombies, therefore, were still walking around the island, craving human flesh and never stopping, never resting, in their quest to get it.

For reference, that's more people than live in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Someone explain to me what the hell I was still doing in the city?

Adrian had been quiet for a couple of minutes now, so I fire a level one into the hole he had clawed open. "Damn it, Herman, that's getting very annoying. I'll remember this when we clash again."

"Dream on, Adrian." We were talking in circles. He was taunting me, teasing, and the frustration was rising. "Who is it? Kingpin? The Hood? Osborn?"

Ok, I didn't expect the laughter. I expected more snide remarks, maybe even some spit. But Adrian's response was a deep chuckle. "No, no, and no. You're thinking MUCH too small. Children in the kiddie pool, each of them." He paused, taking a breath in between small giggles. "Alright, Herman. I'll give you two pieces of information. And that's all you'll get out of me. I tell you, and you walk away and let me go. Deal?"

Looking up at the smoke-filled night sky, I weighed the offer over for a few moments. I knew if I walked away from Adrian, sooner or later, we'd cross paths, if his boss really wanted me dead that badly. The only other option was killing him, and that wasn't an option at all. Sitting here, drawing an undead crowd, and listening to the sounds of silence for the rest of the evening wasn't really an option either. The supplies I had managed to pull from the drug store before my clash with the Vulture were still intact, luckily, and the truck still had its keys in the ignition and half a tank of gas, easily enough to get me back to the warehouse and safely behind closed and locked doors.

"Spill, Adrian," I finally conceded. "And just so you know, I got both vibro-smashers aimed right at you, so don't get smart."

"No worries. Listen carefully, Herman. One, you've worked with this person before. He is not a stranger to you. He knows you and he knows of your reputation and abilities first-hand. Hence...his interest in you."

Well...that actually narrows it down a bit. "And what's the second piece of info, Adrian? Why don't you just go ahead and tell me his name, man...save some time."

"I don't need to give you his name, Herman." That chuckle again, getting on my nerves. I hate not knowing the damn joke. "He's everywhere. He's all around you. Everywhere you look, Herman, no matter if you're indoors or outdoors. His touch, his sight, you can't escape it. His grip is closing on you...on everyone in this fallen city, Herman." The lid rattled as one talon pushed through the gashes in the lid of the dumpster, pointing at where I sat on top of the trailer. "You just seem to be the one he's focused his scarlet eye on."

"Yeah...then he can come find me his own damn self." Time was getting short...sure, I could sit up here and blast away at Adrian until I got bored, but somehow I knew this was the end of the line. There wasn't anything else I was going to get out of the Vulture, and the natives were still restless. Eventually, the noise they were making as their futilely clawed at the trailer would draw enough of them to become a real problem.

My legs ached as I stood up. Rubbing my thighs to get the circulation back, I called down to Adrian. "Anything else you want to add before we part ways?"

His response sent a small chill down my spine. "One, two...he's coming for you..."

"Yeah? Well, if he wants me so damn bad," I yelled down at the dumpster, "why does he keep sending scrubs like Electro and you after me? If this guy's so badass, Adrian, why doesn't he just step out and come after me himself?"

"He's not going to waste time on you, Herman...besides, you're still mine. I will have my revenge on you for causing Maxwell's death."

"Whatever, Adrian. I kicked your ass once and I'll do it again if you're stupid enough to try it again, I'll do it again! As for your boss...it's damn obvious he's scared of me if he doesn't have the balls to confront me like you did!" I stepped back from the edge of the trailer, raising my aching arms. "Come on," I screamed into the Manhattan air above Washington Square Park. "Come on, if you're that bad ass! You're everywhere, right? If you got the stones, I'm standing here and I can spare a few minutes to drop you just like I did that bird brain down below and that dim bulb back on Wall Street!"  
My words agitated the pack...screw them. I had this truck hotwired and ready to go, a couple more zombies wouldn't mean much to an 18-wheeler's front grille. If this guy wanted me that much, he could damn well show some courtesy and reveal himself. I wasted too much damn time the past few nights dealing with his garbage, and better to let it out here than in a warehouse full of civilians who were probably waiting for myself or Boomerang to go off at any time.

"Right here, big guy, I'm standing right here! Come on, man, show me a sign..."

I was looking south, across West 4th Street, when the light flared in the sky. On the roof of a three-story townhouse, a bright white spot burst into being for a split second. By the time I turned to stare at the spot, it had vanished, replaced instead by an orange trail...

...and a hissing noise...

"...OH, CRAP!"

I didn't even think about it. I turned and was in the process of diving off the side of the trailer as the rocket-propelled grenade flew through the air at the truck, not even pausing to wonder if I was diving into a horde of zombies that had gathered on the opposite side. As my feet left the roof of the trailer and my eyes took in the concrete sidewalk below me as I cleared the side of the roof, the zombies had gathered by the dumpster, where I had been visible.

The bad news was, once again, I was airborne, heading straight towards a solid patch of masonry.

The good news? The exploding truck broke my fall.

I didn't see the explosion, but I damn sure heard and felt it.

My body felt the heat a split second before the blast wave caught me. The pressure damn near stopped my fall, shoving me forward away from the truck instead, halting my thirteen-foot fall somewhere around the six foot mark. Of course, I still had to deal with the fireball, and the pieces of metal truck whizzing through the air like shrapnel, and add to it that hitting the ground from six feet in the air still isn't a pleasant feeling.

I felt something cut into my calf, just grazing the back of it. I knew it wasn't deep, but it hurt like hell. Then, something much more painful hit me, or rather, I hit it. My brief airborne journey ended with me slamming stomach first into the outer edge of the park's central fountain. Wind? Knocked clean out of me. Groaning, I managed to roll over, sliding down the stone edge as I used it to stay upright as I slumped to the ground. Sitting against the edge, I took several deep breaths as I took in what the hell just happened.

The RPG had annihilated the trailer. The damn thing must have slammed into the side gas tank hanging underneath the back of the rig. The rear end was somewhat intact, as the open doors channeled the blast out the back, but the front end was a flaming wreck, several large jagged holes ripped into the metal. The center section was just gone, scattered across the park in the form of flaming shrapnel. That's where the fire blazed, flame and smoke adding yet another plume to the sky above New York City. My body gave itself a few seconds to recover, letting me sit there and watch the scene. Yeah, there was some idiot on the roof across the street with an RPG, but why fight my body? It needed air.

The dumpster was in flames, overturned on its side. The lid had been blown open during the attack, and the smoldering contents were spilled over the ground. Adrian had to be one of the several bodies burning around the dumpster, each one engulfed in flames as a mix of high explosive and gasoline torched the area. A few of the corpses were still twitching, one even crawling along, covered in fire, but still mobile as its' brains sizzled inside its skull, pulling itself along the ground by its fingernails. Damn it...Adrian may have wanted to kill me, but I didn't want to kill him...

I needed to move, before whoever killed Adrian tried to off me as well. My body agreed with me. I had burned through so much adrenaline over the past few nights, I didn't have a damn thing left in my gas tank. My urgency to exit stage left consisted of a low groan from my body and a weary push away from the fountain. I used the edge to climb to my feet…well, climb to one knee. Leaning against the stone, I took a deep breath, trying to will myself to stand. Even the threat some psycho with an RPG couldn't get me going. I was finally out. The flesh was damn weak, and no matter what my spirit said, just sitting back down…well, maybe it wasn't that bad an idea.

I caught movement. Lifting my head, at the edge of the patch of flames, I saw a form lumbering towards me. Somehow, the on-fire zombie I had noticed pulling itself along on the ground had made it to its feet where I couldn't. Flames still flickered on every part of its body, and it left a small trail of fiery patches on the ground as its shoes melted under the intense heat. Somehow, its brain still functioned, and even though flaming portions of a tractor trailer stood between it and the closest meal, it was telling the ghoul to push on, through the fire and the flames, and make a grab at me. What the hell was driving that thing? It was on FIRE. There was FIRE between it and me. I was a good thirty feet away, and by the time it got to me, hopefully its' brain would have melted out its ears. But that didn't stop it. It was the damn Unhuman Torch stumbling towards me. I didn't hear it moan, but even this far away, I was imagining what its sizzling skin sounded like.

While the theoretical death of a guy armed with RPG's hadn't been enough to get my ass off the ground, the definite death at the hands of a hungry zombie gave me the will to push up off the fountain. One hand stabilized myself as I stood, my eyes never leaving the zombie as it cleared the wreckage, still mobile and still locked in on me. Alright…I needed a car. There were plenty on the streets, and it shouldn't be too hard to hotw…

Fire and gas tanks, or any other explosive material container, are a funny combination. Sometimes, just having an open flame with ten feet of a gas can is enough to light the fumes and cause a big bang. Other times, you could shoot a tanker truck full of gasoline with high explosive tracer rounds and nothing. Explosions, much like Fate, can be a real dame bitch at times. Or, as Speed Demon put it one time, "Fate's a comedy writer, and she loves slapstick." In that case, who the hell knew an RPG and a tractor trailer's gas tank could make a two-stage delayed explosion? Well, the Lady who's writing this piece of humor, that's who.

I instinctively raised my forearm to partially shield my eyes as the wreckage exploded, a loud crackling boom accompanying the bright orange glow. Below my forearm, I saw the flaming zombie's feet leave the ground as, much like had happened to me earlier, the pressure from the blast wave propelled it through the air, towards the fountain…

My mind's processing of what was about to happen was quicker than my body's reaction. The ghoul was propelled through the air, on a trajectory that took him through right where I had wearily managed to stand up. What was probably 175 pounds slammed into my torso chest first, and it was only the stone edge of the park's fountain that stopped be from going ass over teakettle into the water. That still didn't deal with the fact that I had a zombie who was on freakin' fire trying to eat me. One of his arms flailed at me, with the other gripped into my shoulder, tightening its grip

Now, for the most part, my suit could take high temperatures, but that was a high temp environment, where the air was hot or filled with steam. I never took into account having a guy on fire grabbing at me. But that wasn't what made me yell out in fear and agony. Through the rips in my armor the Vulture had caused earlier in the evening, my bare skin was exposed in the form of slash wounds. The fire licked at them, searing the still open cuts. There aren't enough A's to sound out the long, continuously scream as I felt pain greater than anything I'd ever known up to that point searing at my skin.

I tried to get my arms up to push the zombie away. We were so close, I could see the remains of its face through the flames. One eyeball had exploded from the heat, and the other was almost floating freely in its socket. All its hair had been singed off, and as I struggled, skin poured off its face like wax, oozing slowly down its bony cheeks. One arm bashed at my flank as the flaming skull loomed closer like the spirit of vengeance, blackened teeth gaping as it went for my neck. Through the fear and pain, I managed to fire off a blast. What level, I didn't know. What I was aiming at, no idea. But it hit its mark...at such close range, my chest caught some of the backblast, but I barely felt is through the pain from the cuts sizzling on my chest. The zombie's arm fell from my shoulder, and its face pulled away from my neck as the thing stepped backwards away from me. As soon as I could, both hands came up, and I let the damn ghoul have it. Even as the vibro-blasts smashed into its body, snuffing some of the flames while causing other patches to flare up, I kept firing, the pain I was feeling fueling the cry of anger as I did my best to pummel the zombie into oblivion. I didn't know if I even hit the head, but it was on the ground, unmoving, and I still kept unloading, making the corpse jump and twitch under my assault.

Eventually, the pain I was feeling on my chest overcame my fear and anger. My thumbs left the triggers of my gauntlets, numbness creeping in. The corpse was unmoving, smoldering in several spots, but importantly no longer a threat to me. I took a deep breath...

As I drew the breath, my chest felt like it was on fire. Looking down...my chest WAS on fire. The quilted fabric had caught on fire when the zombie embraced me. Not only did the flame lick at the Vulture's talon wounds, but the layers that made up my suit were beginning to singe, folded fabric and circuitry just waiting to ignite and possibly turn me into a human bonfire.

Now, kids, what are you supposed to do in a situation like this? Stop, drop, and roll? A cookie to whoever said that. What do you think I did?

"Aaaaaaaaaargh!" One hand batted and swiped at my chest, dragging across the cuts as I slapped at myself. Did this help? Oh hell no, what this did was just make the situation a little worse...especially as a red hot ember came loose. It hung in the air for a spilt second before I accidentally swiped it back at me, letting it settle directly on my secondary layer of skin.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Louder cry, much more pain, and there went rational thought. Herman wanted out, as in "put out," as in "NOT ON FREAKIN' FIRE ANYMORE!" And, luckily for me at that time (even though it almost came back to bite me in the ass a few moments later), there was a source of water right behind me. I turned and climbed into the fountain as quickly as I could, tripping over the edge in the process. It sent me tumbling into the cool water face first, my chest landing on the thin layer of pennies and nickels. Oh, God, this felt better than any thing I could have scored from an Oriental masseuse, as the flames went now, the water feeling cold and refreshing against my skin. Sure, who knew what bacteria floated in a shut-off fountain three days in the middle of a zombie apocalypse with funeral pyres burning into the sky and dead corpses scattered all around? I didn't care. I wasn't on fire anymore, that's what mattered.

I lifted my head, aching as my chest expanded against what had to be second-degree burns on my torso. It took effort to hoist myself up, now resting my back against the center column. Water poured off of me, soaking into my uniform. Christ...the fire hydrant earlier was bad enough, but now, who knew how soaked my contact panels or my gauntlets were. I raised one of the gloves, water dripping from every part and crevice, and aimed at a nearby tree...

Click click.

Two clicks. Fail safe mode. The glove wouldn't fire, meaning the circuitry inside was waterlogged and it wouldn't let me risk a short-circuit. Results could range anywhere from a nasty electric jolt to an explosion that could take off my entire arm. I'd curse, but I built in the fail safe mode just in case of a situation like this, where I wanted to keep all my limbs and digits attached.

So there I was, sore, burned, cut, my gauntlets not working, my suit probably not working, blocks from home, and who knows how many ghouls between me and a working car?

Things couldn't get...

And that's when I got shot.

Ok. This wasn't a zombie apocalypse anymore. This was the universe screwing with Herman Schultz on every possible level. Yeah, there were families out there who had seen fathers eat sons, daughter devour mothers, policemen who pulled the triggers on their own grandmothers. But this was different. The dead rising to eat the living was happening to everyone. What I was experiencing was my own personal private humiliation conga, and every time I thought it couldn't get worse? Oh yeah, the universe was ready to show me just how wrong I was.

The bullet slammed into my shoulder, slicing through the fabric and impacting skin and bone. Any residual pain from the burns on my chest was immediately overshadowed by the agony of the round entering my body. I mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating. Being punched, kicked, dropped from a building, slashed, grabbed by a zombie, jumping out a window, hit with an energy blast or a bolt of electricity, all really damn painful, but none of them as bad as being shot with a bullet.

My eyes went wide as I felt the impact. After a few moments, on reflex, my mouth opened to yell, but all I managed was a strangled cry. My free hand went to my injured shoulder as an intense, searing heat flared to life, my teeth grinding together from the pain. I started to shake as I took a good look at the wound. A flower of crimson was forming on my fabric, the yellow quilts turning a dark brown. I fought down the instinct to probe the hole with a finger, instead trying to fight my way through the pain. Someone shot me, after blowing up a tractor trailer in an attempt to kill either myself or Adrian Toomes. Three people fit that bill. One, the same guy who shot Electro last night. Two, someone working for Adrian's boss who wanted to tie up some loose ends. And three, some random loon with access to weapons and a severe need to use them. Any one of those guys meant my ass needed to vacate the premises, as soon as possible. My legs were fine, but climbing out of the fountain without using my hands was a experiment in fun. Every move I made with my body, a shockwave seemed to go right to where I was shot. For as much as I was in a hurry, I was taking my time to make sure...

I had one leg out and on the ground when a sharp pain erupted from the back of my shoulder. Something was probing and twisting, sending arrows of agony down my body. I crumpled, falling forward to land sternum first on the concrete edge of the fountain. Oh, Christ, between my chest, the front of my shoulder, and the back of my shoulder, this is what being eaten alive had to feel like. A hand grabbed the back of my head, and my contact plates failed to fire, letting whoever it was bunch up the fabric. I wheezed as wet fabric was pulled across my face, trying to pull a breath. An attempt to turn around and face my assailant was met by a second hand, pushing down at the top of my spine. I was forced over, back into the pool, and the hand on my head shoved me downwards. I managed to gasp a lungful of air before my head was underwater.

My lower body thrashed as the cold water lapped against the gunshot wound. With my free arm, I tried to reach backwards, flailing as I grabbed at my assailant. In the back of my mind, I managed to think "at least they're not biting me."

Small comfort.

Nearly fifteen seconds passed as the water pressed against me. My mask was drenched, waterlogged, and the air I held in my lungs was beginning to burn. Weakly, I kept reaching with my arm, but came up empty. Trying to lift myself out only cause whoever was holding me to increase the pressure. My lungs contracted, trying to make me breathe, but I couldn't. Who the hell drowns in a foot-deep fountain? That'd be a great way to go...

A yank on my mask, and fresh air in my lungs. I took a deep breath as soon as I broke the surface, gasping and trying to claw at my mask, but my free hand was grabbed by a thick white glove. That hand and the one on my head forced me down to the ground, on my knees, and then spun around so my back was against the fountain. Water dripped from my eyepieces, and as he let me go, I wiped at them, trying to clear my vision. The fabric of my mask made it hard to draw a breath, and eventually, I pulled it off, head back, trying to draw air. Each hitch of my shoulders from breathing so hard burned like phosphorous, straining the talon, burn, and gunshot wounds. I was a walking first-aid manual at this point.

I raised my head after a few seconds, my eyes clearing up as the last bits of water fell to the ground. Standing in front of me, he had a rifle over one shoulder, with a pistol in holster on his belt. He looked down at me, and as I locked eyes with that weathered, I knew, immediately, that I was going to die in the new few minutes.

"Alright, Shocker," Frank Castle told me as I sprawled against the central fountain, "you and I are going to have a talk."


	26. Blood and Gunfire

One of his hands reached down to the white belt he wore around his waist, the teeth of the skull-emblem drawn on his black Kevlar uniform. From one of the tiny compartments, he pulled out a small syringe with a long needle, filled with an amber fluid. "First things first." He flicked the plastic cap off the needle, before, without fanfare, jamming it into the skin around the gunshot wound. Cue yet another burning sensation, but this time, the heat didn't feel like my flesh was melting.

"What did..." I managed to choke out.

"Instant blood clot," the Punisher said as put the now-empty syringe away. "It'll stop you from bleeding out. The bullet went clean through your shoulder, Schultz. I underestimated how thick your armor was."

"Circuitry makes it looks thicker than is it..." I mumbled as the pain in my shoulder was replaced by a dull ache. Constant pain, but it wasn't overriding my other senses.

"I shouldn't have wasted it on you, but I can't have you bleeding to death or going into shock." The vigilante leaned over me, a calm look on his Italian features. "Let's lay down the ground rules right now. I'm going to ask a bunch of questions. You're going to answer them." One hand unsnapped a side holster, and he smoothly removed the pistol hanging from his hip. Holding it close to my face for emphesis, he explained, "if you mouth off, get smart, or most important of all, lie to me, I'll jam the barrel of my .45 into that bullet hole and twist. You play straight with me, don't be a wiseguy, I'll keep the level of pain to a minimum. That's the deal, Schultz. You gonna play straight?"

Of course I was going to play straight. This was the freakin' Punisher, madman and psycho-killer. I had no illusions. He was going to kill me at some point. But by playing straight and not pissing the guy off, maybe I could buy time, figure a way out of this mess. That was my only hope. Time.

I nodded. "Yeah...yeah, I'll be on the up and up."

"Smart man." The gun still in his hand, he crouched down, kneeling in front of me. I had never actually had a run-in with the Punisher in my life. Sitting here, wounded, shot, run down...there's different types of scared. There's dread, that sense that things just aren't right, or that fear that something about to go horribly wrong. You don't know what's wrong, or if you do know, you don't know what exactly's going to happen to you. Then there's that adrenaline-driven fear, fight or flight, heart pounding, blood racing.

And then there's the third type of fear. The one where your entire body locks up, your mind shuts down, and you're pretty much beyond all capability for rational thought and action, because you know what's awaiting you. In that case, it was death, pure and simple. After all, the Punisher wasn't known for letting people off on a technicality. He doesn't care about good works, about fresh starts, turning your life around. You committed a crime? He'll kill you. Stilt-Man, of all people, volunteered to work for the government during the whole registration mess last summer. What happened? The Punisher got his hands on a LAW rocket and blew Wilbur out of his suit before putting a bullet in his head. Stilt-Man. The most harmless supervillain on the damn planet, and someone who actually decided to work on the side of the angels. It didn't matter to Frank Castle. Once a bad guy, always a bad guy, and the only good bad guy is a dead bad guy. There's nothing stopping him from putting two right into my skull. But he wants me alive for now, and that's the only thing keeping me breathing. I gotta play on that.

"We'll start with a simple question, Schultz. Why were you and Toomes fighting? I saw your little brawl up in the Village."

That one was easy to answer. "He blamed me for getting Electro killed. You pulled the trigger, but he says I was an accessory."

The Punisher nodded at my response. "You were. If it wasn't for you, it would have taken me a lot longer to nail Dillon. Tying his hands and putting him against the counter, you gave me a clear line of sight. Got Dillon and that guy screaming his head off in that chair."

"And what about the rest of his crew, the guy's trapped in the vault?"

"I figured they ran out of air seventeen hours ago. Don't worry about them, not even a bunch of those things could pry open a vault door." He said it so matter-of-fact. Four or five guys, running out of air in a vault, and what if one of them died...and came back...before anyone else? And Punisher just mentioned it like it was the score of the Raiders-Browns game in late December. "Next question. Why did you throw Toomes in a dumpster and not kill him or walk away?"

It took me a few seconds to phrase my answer...

The sight at the end of the gun barrel scraped along the flesh on the inside of the bullet wound. I screamed, coming off the ground slightly, as the Punisher rotated the barrel, twisting the bloody layer of skin. "Don't think it over, Schultz. That just means you're trying to make up a lie."

"I'm...I'm not trying to lie," I exclaimed, panting from the pain. "I'm just trying to figure out how to say it!"

"Don't," was his reply. The wound made a nasty squish as he pulled the pistol back out.

"Ow...damnit, alright, alright...you saw in the bank Electro and I fighting, right?" He didn't nod, just stared at me with that neutral expression. I kept going. "Whoever Electro was working for wanted to kill me. When that didn't work out, he sent Adrian, who volunteered to come and off me. Since that two guys I used to work with wanted to kill me, I figured I'd ask him who sent him to do the job."

"And who is it?"

"I don't..." The Punisher was moving the pistol towards my shoulder. I did my best to pull it away, all of two inches as it bumped against the fountain. "He wouldn't tell me, damn it, he just kept taunting me!"

Gunpowder. This close to me, Castle smelled like blood and gunpowder. The .45 was hovering at my shoulder, the barrel more unnerving then the bullets inside. "So you don't know who Dillon and Toomes were working for? You're telling me that you took that bank job sight unseen? That's not your MO, Schultz. You usually have the angles covered."

"Bank job...no, Castle, I wasn't rob..." Oh, God. White flashes at the edge of my vision, before my eyes squeezed shut from the pain. "I WASN'T ROBBING THE PLACE," I bellowed, not caring if every zombie in the Tri-State area could hear me scream.

That didn't stop him. The .45 tore into the bullet wound, metal bouncing against bone now. "If I pulled the trigger now, you wouldn't have a shoulder. Or an arm. They'd have to amputate everything below your shoulder, Schultz, because there wouldn't even be enough gristle to cause phantom limb syndrome."

"Ok! Ok! I...I helped Electro crack the vault, but I wasn't there with him! His goons..." I cursed loudly, and since this is America, where blood and guts are ok but Lord forbid if you swear, we'll just cross out that part. "...frog-marched me into the bank to help him! I was just minding my own business!"

The gun was still in my wound, cold fire inside my body. The wound wasn't bleeding out, which meant I couldn't even pass out from blood loss. Shock was a viable option, though. But if I went unconscious, in the middle of zombie-infested New York City with the Punisher interrogating me, my chances of survival almost instantly approached zero. Biting down on my lip, I willed myself to stake awake, to fight through the pain. Unconsciousness seemed like a damn good idea right now, but so did...well, leaving the safety of my warehouse to get medical supplies, and we're seeing much of a goat rope THAT good idea turned out to be.

"So you just happened to be walking around Lower Manhattan, and just happened to come across Dillon's goons, and they just happened to walk you to a bank, and you just happened to be able to crack open that particular model of Stark vault with no prep work and the proper application of voltage?"

"Yes!"

Pause. And then the pain intensified for a second, followed by the absence of searing agony as the pistol was pulled from my body. Even though it felt like an elephant had just stomped down directly where I had been shot, it was lower on the pain scale, and I embraced the downward trend wholeheartedly.

"That's stupid enough to make sense, given your pattern of movement over the past few days." The Punisher pulled a dirty oilcloth from one of his belt's compartments, and as I groaned, he cleaned the barrel of his gun. Watching him wipe away my own blood was a bit surreal. "So you don't know who Dillon and Toomes are working for? You're not working for this guy in some capacity?"

I managed a low chuckle, my voice cracking at the effort. "I swear, Punisher, I ain't. I just want to survive this whole mess. Sticking my neck out just to rob a bank, when money ain't really worth a damn anymore?"

"So why crack the safe then? Just doing a favor for your buddy Dillon?"

"Partially," I said, giving an honest answer, "but also, he said if I cracked it, he'd tell me who he was working for. Hell, it was just gold, Castle, if he wanted it so bad, it was a fair trade."

"It's also grand theft," he answered, honestly. "So, did Dillon or Toomes tell you anything at all? I'll give you time to think on this one, Schultz, because this one's damn important with regards to how I'm gonna deal with you."

That was not as reassuring as it sounded, which may have been the entire point. I leaned my head back, eyes closed as I tried to think. "You don't think the zombies are gonna come and get us, Castle, while I rack my brain?"

"They shouldn't," the Punisher replied in a cold tone. "I thinned out their ranks while you were having your little chat with Adrian. You couldn't pick up the muffled shots from where you were sitting. Don't worry about them. They're just dead bodies. Worry about what you can tell me about this guy."

"Ok..." After a second, I nodded. "It is a guy. Electro confirmed that. Rough voice, and that's...hey, he said one sentence to me," I quickly spat as Castle's face hardened, "one sentence and that was to tell me 'goodbye.'"

"You recognize it?"

Wincing in anticipation, I shook my head. "No, I swear. Toomes said stuff, though...how he was everywhere, and I had worked with him before...but I don't remember anyone with a voice like that, teaming with them."

"Think, Schultz. Put your back into it. Rough voice," he urged.

"Castle...that could be anyone, man. It was one sentence over a cell phone...anything I told you would be speculation and I ain't dumb enough to waste your time."

As the Punisher mulled that over, one more bit of information came to light. "He told me who it wasn't...I don't know if Toomes was lying to me, Castle, but I asked him point blank if it was certain people. He said it wasn't the Kingpin, or Norman Osborn, or the Hood."

"It's not the Kingpin. I killed him about two hours after I offed Electro."

Blink blink blink. "You...Fisk is dead?"

"And Bullsye."

Kingpin? And Bullseye? Two of the most feared people in all of New York City, and the Punisher's treating it like he was ordering coffee at a Ihop. "How..."

"Don't mind them, Schultz. Anything else you got to tell me?"

Just like that. Never mind the world's deadliest assassin and one of the most powerful crime bosses on the planet were dead, and I had no reason to suspect the Punisher was lying. And that wasn't important. Just two more dead men to Frank Castle, and how many other dead men were there, men he cut and shot his way through?

I tried. I thought on everything that had happened. Any information I could have given him to prolong my stay of execution. But in trying to think of anything, I thought of nothing. And in thinking of nothing, I was thinking I was going to die. And apparently, so did Castle. He stood up, and the sound of him pulling back the slide on the .45 was a bell tolling for old Herman Schultz. I throw my hands up in the air as he lowers the gun. My gauntlets are clicking like crazy as they refuse to fire due to still being soaked. "Punisher, wait, wait!"

"Sorry, Schultz. You don't have anything else I want to know."

Click, click, click, come on, fire damn it, fire! Damn my eyes for building a fail safe system that actually WORKED. Well, I ain't gonna plead or beg. He's aiming between my eyes even as my thumbs keep pushing, keep clicking. The gun's held in place, and his finger is on the trigger. It's the look that he's wearing on his face. He's not angry, he's not joyful, and he's not remorseful. To him, I'm just another body dead. Well, I'm dying with my eyes open, and at least he's giving me the nicety of a head shot...

"Actually, I do have one question, Schultz." He could be ordering coffee at Starbucks from the tone of his voice. "Stop trying to blast me," the Punisher growled. "I know your gauntlets don't work when wet."

I don't know where I found the balls. "Lower your damn gun first."

*CLICK*

I lowered my hands as he cocked back the hammer on the .45, pulling my thumbs back. "I'm not the kind of guy to screw around, Schultz. I should just put a bullet in your skull now, which is more kindness then scum like you deserves. But I'm not going to risk you getting back up and hurting someone else. So I'm going to ask you one question. If you give me a good answer, maybe I'll consider walking away. Take all the time you need, Schultz, but make it good.

"Why were you risking your neck the past few nights?"

I blinked under my mask. That was it? That was the question? Why was I going around playing Good Samaritan? All that doubt, all those questions to myself, the conversations with Aleksei, with Spider-Man, with Abner, and with Fred...all of it. It had meandered through my thoughts since that first night outside the Bar with No Name...and it all may have led up to this moment.

So I began. "A couple of nights ago, this guy wanders into the Bar with No Name, and he's all busted up. Outside, the school bus he was driving was under attack by a couple of zombies. I heard the kids inside screaming, and a bunch of us dropped the ghouls and pulled the kids to safety. That was before any of us knew what was going on." I licked my lips, which were dry even though my mask was still dripping a bit with fountain water. "This older lady, probably a teacher...when I saw the thing attacking her, I thought he was trying to rape her...and that's one line I'd never cross, Castle. So I did what...maybe it came naturally, but it definitely was out of reflex."

It was the smallest possible facial motion a human being cold make as the Punisher barely sneered at me. "So because you thought this lady was being raped, you jumped in and saved her."

"And the kids on the bus. Then when we got back to my hideout..." I gritted my teeth for a minute as my shoulder flared up, the blood vessels throbbing just underneath my skin. "...and we saw the Wrecker trying to eat Nick Fury...and then saw those guys trapped in their cars...hell, Punisher. What the hell kind of human being would I be if I sat by and didn't do a damn thing?"

"You'd be just like most of the scum who either sat by, went into hiding, or tried to take advantage," he calmly retorted.

"Well, I didn't do any of that...ok, ok," I said as one eyebrow raised slightly, "Rhino and I looted a Walgreen's and a couple other drug stores, but that's because we have a whole bunch of survivors at my hideout, and we were planning on waiting this whole thing out. Hell, we found a whole bunch of Tombstone's guns and gave them away to some soldiers!"

"Right. And just because you handed some illegal weapons over to the US Army, and rescued a couple of people, and are taking care of them...that makes you a good guy?"

"Maybe...maybe," I spat. "It doesn't atone for everything I've done in the past, Castle, but given the choice to fish or cut bait, me and my friends got a whole bunch of dynamite and went fishing. This whole mess, it ain't about...it's not about Captain America vs. the Red Skull, or the Hulk vs. the Sentry, or hell, it's not about you killing the entire universe. Avengers, Defender, Offender, Sinister Six, Republican, Democrat...it's down to the line, Castle. The whole human race is down to the line against a whole bunch of ghouls, who are increasing at an exponential rate, and I'm not going down without a damn fight! I might have a way to go to balance the scales, but for the time being, I'm out there fighting the...I'm out HERE fighting the good fight because this is bigger than me, you, everything!"

For a few seconds, I thought I had convinced him. The pistol was still pointed at my face, and the eyes were still devoid of any emotion, but he was silent. Mulling over what I said. If he hadn't shot me yet, maybe, just maybe...

"Sorry, Schultz. You might not be top of the line scum, but you're still scum."

He took one step forward, and my hands came up, the only motion I could make with my body. I didn't have anything left in my system, or else I probably would have peed my suit with there as the barrel of his .45 loomed inches from my face. "Castle, no, don't! "

"Your rules might have changed, but mine haven't. Protect the innocent...punish the guil..."

One arm wrapped around his neck. From behind, the zombie attempted to sink his teeth into the throat of the Punisher. But this was the Punisher, whose uniform, of course had some kind of Kevlar collar. There wasn't any wasted motion as the Punisher reacted instantly. One arm came up and knocked the arm away from his throat, even as he was turning and bringing his other arm around to take aim. As soon as he had the shot lined up, he pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed off the stone surfaces as the zombie, a middle-aged man with a bloody Van Heusen shirt, dropped to the ground. Castle quickly scanned the area, his head craning left to right, and then he holstered the pistol. But the relief I felt was fleeting as the Punisher dipped to unsling the rifle from his shoulder, an old M14, 7.62 mm. He checked the chamber, before raising it to his shoulder. "I'll deal with you in a minute, Schultz," he said, dismissing me, before the rifle bucked against his shoulder as he fired

A good-sized mob of ghouls were shambling towards the fountain. Twenty, maybe thirty, spread out in a semi-circle. They were approaching from the south, passing the still-smoldering wreckage of the tractor trailer. The flames had died down, but smoke still rose into the sky. The wreckage had shielded them from view as the Punisher had interrogated me, both of us with such tunnel vision, we had been ignorant of the approaching threat

The closest one was ten feet away when the Punisher had fired. As that one dropped to the ground, he switched targets, pivoting on his foot to take aim and blow away the next one, a blonde whose head snapped back as she fell like a lumberjacked tree. Each motion was mechanical, no wasted efforts or energy, years of practice and execution coming into play. Rifle stock set in his shoulder, eye sighting down the iron notches, it was like watching the Angel of Death coming to reclaim the souls who had escaped him. Frank Castle sent by the seraphims to have words with whoever or whatever was screwing with the cycle of life and death.

I watched him drop two more before my survival complex kicked in. He had classified me as holding no threat, ignoring me to take care of the approaching horde. I was too tired to be offended at the dismissal. Instead, any anger I felt, I used to try to climb to my feet. Just like before Castle had tried to drown me, I had managed to get off the ground. My good arm pushed off the fountain's edge as the Punisher pulled back on the M14's bolt to chamber another round.

"Stay down, Schultz," he warned me as another zombie dropped. "I'd prefer to head shot you, but a gut shot will just mean these things kill you instead of an instant, painless death."

"Yeah, well, if you're gonna live to shoot me in the head, you're gonna need my help." I was lying through my teeth, but I lifted the gauntlet on my good arm and took aim at a ghoul about twenty feet away. "Damn it," I tried to grouse convincingly, "circuitry's still soaked. I can't get a shot off."

He didn't respond, instead pouring more fire into the mob. I couldn't have tried to run...walk...limp...away. He just turn and shoot me, one more zombie to him. He was on autopilot, maybe flashing back to another place, another time. His lips were tight, his breath slow and steady, as the Punisher settled into a steady pattern. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Bolt. Fire.

"Maybe if I switched the battery packs..." Whether or not he heard me, he didn't respond as I took a step backwards. Pretending to fiddle with my gauntlets, I kept a keen eye on the M14. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Bolt...

Click.

As the empty clip of bullets was ejected from the M14, his hand was already reaching for a compartment on his belt. That's when I made my move. As soon as his hand was inside the compartment, temporarily trapped, I dipped slightly and rammed my shoulder into the small of his back.

Well, that's what I intended to do. In reality, I caught him below his right shoulder, possibly on one of his kidneys. He probably didn't even feel it through the Kevlar, but it did knock him off balance. As I moved in to follow up, the Punisher brought the butt of the rifle around. I managed to get my arm off to block...

Bam. Fist right to my sternum. Right on top of all the assorted wounds and injures I had taken tonight. My turn to stagger a little bit, though I somehow managed to choke down the scream I wanted to make. As I stumbled, he was reloading. As the clip slammed home, my head lowered, and I rushed him again. My bad shoulder hit him first, but I kept going, my feet never stopping, like a running back in a scrum. I felt a fist come down on the back of my neck, but by that time, the two of us were falling to the ground. He hit first, the M14 bouncing from his hand and scattering away on the concrete. As we landed, his fist slammed into my jaw, barely being absorbed by the soaked fabric. The Punisher was down. I had to keep him down. No matter how badly he was going to hurt me, or probably kill me, if he got back up, I was toast.

For a guy with vibro-smashers, I was getting into way too much hand-to-hand combat. Electro, Vulture, and now the Punisher. The only way I knew how to fight hand-to-hand? Dirty. My thumb went right for the Punisher's eye. I had to use my good arm to hold myself up, and trying to jam my thumb into his eye socket was like playing a game of whack-a-mole, and my metal gauntlet was the mallet.

The Punisher still had the upper hand, though, even if I had him pinned on the ground. One, the bastard had both arms. And two, he was much better at hand-to-hand combat then I could have ever dreamed of being. One hand pushed against my chin, getting my head up and exposing my face to a solid right hand. He wasn't Thor or Miss Marvel, but the Punisher's punch sent stars shooting past my eyes as it connected with the soaked fabric of my mask. My response was just to push down harder on his face. His legs kicked behind me as I mashed my glove into his nose, even as a second punch rocked my world. No, there wasn't any way in hell I was letting him up, especially now. The fabric soaked up the worst of his punches, and I could hang on, just a little longer.

The horde had grown as Castle and I fought on the sidewalk. Right now, I was a sitting duck if those things got close enough to fall on us. Even in the middle of this life-or-death struggle, their moans were raking across my ears, sending my hackles all the way up. But I needed them closer. Just like earlier in the evening, a trap...

My world exploded. White and red flashes across my eyes, and jagged bolts of lightning streaked from my shoulder. Through tears (manly, manly tears of pain, I need to point out), I could see the white glove of the Punisher, and his thumb jammed into the bullet wound. His digit twisted and turned, each slight motion a white-hot bolt of agony. Yeah, I screamed, and I screamed loud enough to wake the dead. But my response was to ball up the fist in his face and smash it down on his nose. His response was to touch bone, pushing his thumb in as far as he could...and I punched him again.

And again.

"You tried to shoot me! Hell, you tried to shoot me in the bank!"

Pause.

"And you probably planted the car bomb underneath my Hummer, you stupid mother..."

He never responded. Not a word, not a grin, not a smirk. His eyes stared at me as his thumb dug at the gunshot wound, but they never connected. Even as I punched him with a metal glove, he didn't flinch, or show any reaction when he started to bleed from a split lip. He wasn't looking at me, or if he was, all he saw of Herman Schultz was one more walking dead that needed put down. Autopilot. The Punisher was on autopilot, going through the deadly motions without any type of feeling or emotion. All he wanted to do was kill. And kill. And kill.

Every time I punched him, the downward motion of my swing drove his thumb further in. Well, if he was an emotionless zombie, I was all about finding the willpower to hang in there. I shouldn't even be conscious right now. Bleeding, burned, shot, exhausted, and just mentally worn out, being surrounded by zombies...curling up into a ball and just dying? Screw that. I've lived the past few days on my terms because I wanted to live. I wanted to survive this. No matter what got thrown at me. Zombies, Wolverine, Electro, Vulture, and now the Punisher. I've dealt with more crap over the past three nights than the rest of my life combined. I dragged my ass this far. I risked my ass so far. I'm pulling myself across the finish line, even if I have no idea what I'm living FOR. Long nights over black coffee and Raman noodles planning a heist? Drinking with Fred and Aleksei. Getting turned down by hookers. Being the laughing stock of the superhero community and dismissed as a minor threat. Hell, being considered by some people a hero. None of that really mattered to me right now. Nothing tangible. I just wanted to live.

And that's all I needed.

As soon as I saw the red flats to one side, I sprung (as best I could in my condition) into action. Both hands went to the Punisher's arm. He swung and glanced a punch off my jaw, but the focus of pain came from me extracting his thumb from my bullet wound. I gritted my teeth, biting off the scream, as the white glove, now caked with red, slowly came out of the hole in my shoulder. He didn't try to force it back in, his free hand already going for the holstered .45. The yell finally came, a choked gargle, as his thumb popped out of my shoulder. And I mean that literally, a loud, wet pop. I felt warm blood pour out of the wound as I used his arm to help shove me away from him. I half pushed-away-from and half rolled-off-of the Punisher as he pulled the pistol from his holster. That's when the girl in the red pumps fell on his hand. The shot snapped off early, ricocheting off the concrete, sending stone chips into the air. She was trying to bite into his Kevlar covered wrist as the Punisher spun the gun in his hand and put a bullet into her eye socket. The whole time, I was on my butt, scuttling away as best I could, trying to get to the only piece of cover there was; the fountain.

Even as the zombie was falling to the ground, the Punisher fired at me again. And again, the shot went wide. Before he could line up another shot, though, two zombies grabbed at him from behind, one on each shoulder. God, it was...it wasn't like anything out of the movies, or TV. Nothing fancy, nothing tricky. He just leaned back, and two rapid shots dropped both zombies. And then he ejected the clip. The reloading time, that's when I found a burst of adrenaline. I pushed myself around the side of the fountain as the Punisher slammed a new clip home into the pistol. The last thing I saw before getting out of his line-of-sight were those eyes, dead and emotionless, sizing me up. Behind him, twenty more zombies were advancing towards him, in a rough semi-circle. A silent, non-verbal threat assessment, like a bouncer in an Irish Pub in South Philly, that's what he was giving me. Who was the bigger problem right now? A wounded Shocker without his vibro-smashers? Or a horde of the hungry dead?

Thank Christ, he picked the zombies.

I could hear the report of the .45 as I pushed off the edge of the fountain. A steady staccato of gunfire let me know the Punisher was standing his ground and not chasing after me. Still, I kept my head down as I limped away from the fountain, heading towards the trees. This side of the park looked zombie-free, which probably meant they were hiding among the branches, waiting to drop down on me. Of course, this side of the park bordered New York University, which the Army had cleared out earlier. So yeah, the number of zombies on this side of the park was hopefully null, but probably miniscule.  
The gunfire paused for a moment, but then picked right back up. It still eminated from the opposite side of the fountain as I reached the treeline. Now, I could use the trees to keep me upright. My goal was to reach the east side of the park, hotwire a car, and get the hell out of here. And once I was back home, probably weld the damn entrance to the storm drain shut so I would never, ever, EVER consider going back outside the warehouse walls for the duration of this crisis. The trees were my support, and I moved from one to the next. Again, the sound of the .45 tapered off, only to resume after a few seconds. I managed a sigh of relief as the street came into view in front of me as the gunfire continued behind me.

Part of me, a damn small part, wondered if I had left the Punisher to die. I considered that as I came out of the trees. Yeah, he had tried to kill me. So had Electro, and I planned on letting Max live. Same with the Vulture, and all I was going to do was leave Adrian to slice his way out of the dumpster. But I knew those guys. Once, I would have considered them colleagues. Castle, I had left for the wolves...but the gunfire told me he was alive and putting up a fight. Screw it. I had gotten away, and if there was anyone on this damn planet who had enough safehouses and armories to survive a zombie apocalypse, it had to be the god damn Punisher.

The street between Washington Square Park and NYU was abandoned. No zombies, that I could see. And very few cars. But, there were cars. Including a Hummer, parked on the sidewalk near a stone gateway leading into the park, the driver's door wide open and facing me. Man, did everyone in New York own one of these, or was there some kind of "IT'S THE END OF DAYS, EVERYTHING MUST GO" sale going on somewhere? Anyway, that was the first car I headed for, after ducking down to make sure there wasn't a zombie OR a bomb waiting for me underneath. Neither was present. What was present, however, was a body in the front seat.

My euphoria at finding a Hummer was mixed as I took in the dead body. In a nice three-piece suit, the kind you see on magazine billboards, a young man sat behind the wheel of the vehicle. Both hands clutched the grip of a .45 pistol. The barrel rested in his mouth, and what was left of his head was splattered all over the back seat. What the hell made him commit suicide, I had to stop and wonder, even if I was on a bit of a time crunch. Did all those bodies in the park get to him, watching the citizens of New York City crackle and burn, forgoing the dubious comforts of a funeral service? Did he see a friend die, jumped and devoured by the living dead? I've mentioned just giving up before, but suicide...never an option.

I would have passed by the Hummer and found another car on the street to hotwire, if I hadn't seen the keys dangling in the ignition. Ah, damn it...ok, Herman, don't look a gift horse in the damn mouth.

Carefully, I put my arms around the body's shoulders. To save the sanity of whoever's reading this, I'll sum up. Chest hurts, shoulder hurts, legs hurt, tired, exhausted, whaa whaa whaa, but it had to be done. Even with the rush, I was trying to be respectful as I gently pulled the body out of the car...except that it wouldn't budge. I pulled on his arms, trying to make the young man come my way, and get him...

Oh, yeah. Seat belt. Even in death, this kid was obeying traffic laws.

After popping the belt, the body, stiff after who knows how long of sitting there, slid easily out of the car. I pulled it away, making sure there wasn't a single possibility that I could run this guy over when I pulled away from the curb. Hey, the guy was a truly, "didn't get back up and walk around" dead body. That deserved some reverence in my opinion. I eased him on the sidewalk, leaving him in front of the stone gate before going right back to the Hummer. Alright, Herman, time to blow this pop stand and get the hell home.

With the door closed and locked, I turned the key in the ignition. The engine, after one hair-raising, ball-tightening moment of catching, turned over, roaring to life. Just a drive across the island and down the West Side Highway. I'll be home in...

Even as the window shattered, my hands were coming up. The quick movement out of the corner of my eye saved me as the glass imploded. Through the falling shards, the knife's tip sliced through the air before both hands caught the forearm of the guy holding it. I pushed out, but the assailant's second arm came in, putting added pressure on the butt of the knife. One guy with one good arm is going to lose to a guy with two good arms, and slowly, the tip of the knife advanced towards me.

"I'm out of bullets because of you." The bloody, scratched face of the Punisher stood outside the broken window, staring at me as we fought over the knife. "That was a nice try, Schultz, but whatever you have planned, it ends here."  
I didn't have time to respond. I couldn't move a hand away to put the car into drive, or else the knife was going to plunge right into my chest. When I tried to slide to the right, one of the Punisher's hands, grabbed the back of my neck, holding me in place. The knife kept coming closer, and I could see, as my wide eyes stared at the killing stoke, the wet blade streaked with black blood. I pushed and flexed, but my arms just couldn't compete with the vigilante's. Closer, and closer, and...

The arm that grabbed the Punisher wasn't gray, or streaked with blood. It was tan, and powerful, pulling the Punisher away from the side of the car. The knife clattered to the pavement as my hands grasped now-empty air. It wasn't a sigh of relief so much as several gasps of relief that I let out, my chest rising and falling as the tension left my body not that it wasn't threatened. I turned my head to look at my savior...

...

...no way.

My rescuer was holding the Punisher up with one arm, and giving him the best possible "what the hell" once over. With no bullets, and no knife anymore, the Punisher, whose entire uniform, still in one piece from what I could see, was caked in blood, simply stared. Where my face held shock and wonder, his face, showing emotion for the first time this evening showed something completely unexpected. Annoyance.

"Are you bit, Castle," my rescuer asked.

"No," was his short and bitter reply.

"Good. Then I can do this without worry." With ease, my rescuer spun in place. Three times, like a discus thrower, they whipped Frank Castle around, holding both arms, lifting him away from the street. After two more spins, they let go. I had to lean forward and watch as the Punisher flew into the air...pretty damn fast. The phrase "blasting off again" came into my head for some reason as Castle soared into the night. I quickly lost his black uniform against the sky as he disappeared from sight.

Now, my jaw had dropped as soon as I saw who had saved me from the Punisher, and it stayed right there as I witnessed an incredible feat of strength. "How...isn't that going to...how did...why..."

"Do not worry about Frank Castle," the voice managed to boom without raising in volume. "He will land, unharmed, in the Hudson River. Your concern should be on yourself, Herman Schultz."

He knew my name. Oh my God, he knew my name. THIS GUY knew my name.

The God of Thunder knew who I was.


	27. Anger Rising

"Have you been bit, Herman?"

I didn't want to know what would have happened to me if I had answered in the affirmative. I mean, the guy hadn't threatened me, hadn't raised his voice, but...it's Thor. The freakin' God of Thunder. Founding member of the Avengers. Silver helmet, dark blue armor, and long red cloak. He could casually slap me on the back and knock me into the next area code, and he's asking me if I'm ok.

"I'm...I'm fine. I'm not bit. Well, I'm not fine, but no, I'm not bit."

"Are you sure? You look like you have been through the Conquering Wyrm this evening," the god...the GOD...responded with concern.

"It's...it's been a rough day." What else could I say? "But I'm ok. Nothing that a hot bath and a cold beer couldn't fix. Several cold beers, actually..."

A lame joke, but it actually got a chuckle from the FREAKIN' GOD OF THUNDER!

Last time, I promise.

"Bravado is well and good, Herman. But false bravado serves nothing. Grab the first aid kit from beside you, and let us adjourn to a nearby rooftop to treat your injuries."

I could have protested. I mean, honestly, it was bad, but a couple of minutes to my warehouse in non-existent New York traffic and I could take care of things. But...you don't turn down a request from a guy like Thor. A superhero. An Avenger. And a guy who really doesn't take crap from anyone.

I hadn't even noticed the first aid kit on the passenger seat, the kind you'd have in the trunk of your car in case of an emergency. Tucking it under my good arm, I made my way out of the Hummer with Thor's assistance. In one hand, he held a massive hammer. I had seen it on TV before, but getting a good look at Mjolnir, up close and personal...stained wood, wicked looking stone on the top. It easily put the Wrecker's crowbar to shame. His other arm gently took me around the waist. We left the ground as he lifted the hammer into the air. As opposed to the terror I felt when Spider-Man had be webbed and flung over his shoulder the other night, I felt at ease as we flew through the air towards the roof of one of NYU's buildings. After cresting the lip and not seeing any zombies stumbling about on the flat surface, we landed, gravel crunching underneath our feet. I let out a relieved sigh. For the first time that night, there wasn't a ghoul out there actively trying to lunch on me or a supervillain or psychotic vigilante gunning for my blood. It took a few more seconds for me to realize something just as important. I was standing next to one of the few people on the planet who was known worldwide as a hero, someone who, a few days ago, would have made me pee my pants if he landed on the same city block as me. I mean, Spider-Man, I've gone toe-to-toe with him, and I hated him more than I feared him. This guy, though, who could probably put a pick-up truck into orbit...hell, who had just put Frank Castle into orbit...no apprehension. No fear. Maybe a bit of starstruckness. Either I had gotten a bit...I think the French word is 'blasie'...about the whole superhero thing, or I was just that beat down and tired that even if the Skrulls had landed on the rooftop, my response would have been a resigned chuckle and nothing more.

"Look after yourself, Herman. I shall keep watch." He held Mjlornir in one hand as I popped open the first-aid kit. Ok, good...a thick roll of gauze bandages. The brown kind. And aspirin. I grimaced at the acidic taste of the Bayer as I crunched four of the tablets in my mouth before dry swallowing the powder. Burn gel next, in this case a tube of antiseptic. Oh, this was gonna hurt. Thor just watched as I popped one of my gauntlets off, just letting it drop down to the roof as I used my teeth to pull one of my gloves off. It was a bitch due to still being slightly waterlogged, but I needed bare fingers. I slathered the gel on my fingers, squeezing the tube from the end. After a deep breath, I started to smear it on my chest. They had just started to seal up, a thin crust of blood and skin covering the wounds, but I had to crack them open to work the gel in. Later on, in the comfort of my own warehouse and under the influence of a lot of painkillers, I'd properly clean and disinfect, but for now, it was a quick and dirty way, pun unintended, to clean myself up. I slathered it all over the three slashes, trying my best to seal everything up again with a layer of gel. After a minute, I lathered more gel on my hand, and did my best to work on the gunshot wound. I let the pain hold sway for this moment, just working on the two holes on the front and back of my shoulder. I was gonna need a doctor, that was damn sure. But I could still flex all four fingers and my thumb, which was more than I could say for several of my previous heists and run-ins. I'd manage until I got back. Hell, I could just ask Thor for a ride...ok, I was calm, but I wasn't THAT comfortable to even broach the subject.

He had one eye on me, the other scanning the rooftop, as I ripped away the edge of the gauze roll with my teeth. "Do you need a hand, Herman?"

I waved him off, gritting my teeth to help pull a long strip away. "Nah. I've done this by myself enough times. As long as it lasts long enough to get me home, that's good enough." Which was the truth, but usually around my arms or legs. My chest and shoulder? This should be interesting. I stuck the sticky edge of the tape under my arm, and did my best to wrap the gauze around my chest and back, and under my arm. I didn't even make it to my back before I realized I was screwed thanks to my bad arm.

"Um...yeah. I could use a hand."

He hung the hammer back on his belt and strode over to where I was. "Try to raise your arms," Thor told me. With his help, we managed to get my chest wrapped in a few moments. It helped, pushing the gel into the wounds and protecting them from whatever was floating in the Manhattan air. The shoulder was a bit more tricky, but we managed to get it done, sealing the gunshot wound tight.

"Alright, that'll do as a jury rig for now." It restricted my arm's motion, but I wasn't planning on fighting anytime soon. "Thanks for the hand." Thor nodded at me as he handed over my gauntlet. It still wasn't working, but wearing it on my hand was still the best way to carry it.

"You're welcome," he replied as I clicked home. "I apologize for arriving at the last moment. I was patrolling and heard the gunfire. By the time I arrived, Castle had almost vanquished you. If I had arrived sooner, you may not be as injured as you are now."

I had to chuckle. "No, no...don't worry. The gunshot wound was the Punisher, but everything else was from a run-in I had earlier in the evening with the Vulture. It's been...a damn rough night." I was doing my best to stand upright and not lean on anything, attempting to look like I had it somewhat together in the face of the Avenger. "I'm just glad you showed up when you did. Thanks a lot, man. I was a goner, the Punisher had me dead to rights."

"You may not wish to thank me just yet, Herman." Thor rubbed his chin, and I knew he was giving me a once over. "Finding you this evening has been a blessing. I was away for the past few weeks, and am only now just..."

Before he could continue, his belt beeped. The communicator on his belt, I meant. Thor clicked a button on the communicator and spoke. "Thor," he rumbled.

"Thor! Oh thank God you showed up! We need backup...it's him...he's heading towards..." A woman's voice shouted from the small device. She would have been coming in clear if it wasn't for the loud explosions or crashes that interrupted her speech. "...get your butt over here, NOW! We're on the Lower West Side, just follow the sound of things being smashed!"

"On our way." As Thor acknowledged the call and shut off the communicator, a low rumble reached my ears. Off to the west, across the park stretched out below us, a cloud of dust was rising into the air over the low-lying brownstones.

"Holy...hey!" I flinched as, again, Thor put his arm around my waist. "Whoa,  
man, where are we going?"

"To the sounds of battle, Herman."

"Whatever's going on over there, I'm in no shape for a fight right now!"

He didn't give a damn about my protests as we were immediately airborne as soon as he had a firm grip on me. "I apologize for the abrupt nature of our journey, Herman, but there is no time to waste standing on rooftops." We were soaring over the green trees of the park by now. I could see the semi-circle of dead zombies scattered around the fountain and the remains of the tractor trailer for a few moments before we left them behind for good. "I will not mince words. We require your assistance, Herman."

"We? Who the hell is we?" Now we were over Greenwich Village, and as we passed over the street where the Vulture and I first met, the horde of undead raised their arms, moaning in frustration at the fresh food dashing overhead. "The Punisher almost killed me with a knife, man. I'm not in any shape to throw down with anyone right now! The Tinkerer could kick my ass and he's in a wheelchair!"

"It's not your brawn, Herman, that we need. It's your brains." Before he could explain anymore, another loud rumble erupted, mixed in with the sound of breaking glass, off to our right. I kind of knew the area. It was a mix of brownstones and shops, an area of Lower Manhattan going under gentrification, Yancy Street. "Thor here," the god said into his communicator, and I shut up to let him talk. "I'm three blocks away. And I've brought reinforcements."

"Well, I hope it's Nova or the Sentry, because we're getting our butts handed to us!" The communicators were advanced enough to literally be real-time audio, no delay as I heard more sounds of combat from both the device and through the air. This time, the voice was a young man's, squeaking slightly but still full of confidence.

"Not quite. This is more of a tactical reinforcement," Thor said as we swept towards the conflict. "I have Herman Schultz with me."

Pause. Just that beat, a split second where, even over an audio link-up, you could just imagine the reaction of the other person, which right now, in my mind, was "you're freaking kidding me!"

Instead, this is what I got. "Hell, we'll take it! The big guy's plowing towards us, and nothing we're putting in his way is going to stop him!"

"Who the hell is he talking about," I asked as more breaking glass, along with the sound of wrenching metal, was picked up.

"You'll see in..."

"No, tell me now, man!" But it didn't matter. The hammer led the way as Thor, with me as a protesting passenger, dove towards the sounds of battle. I was holding on for dear life with my good arm, but the hammer probably kept both of us afloat.

"No time. I will set..."

"LOOK OUT!" I knew he had to see it, but still, I cried out in alarm as a red Hyundai Sonata flew through the air at the two of us. Thor had committed to his descent, and trying to swerve at the last second was impossible. The Sonata was doing its best impersonation of a Nolan Ryan fastball, and before Thor could react, maybe to somehow dodge or just smack the damn thing with his hammer, it slammed into him with a loud crunch. It impacted on the opposite side of where I was being held, and I'm sure to the God of Thunder, it wasn't anything less than being hit with a baseball bat, unpleasant, but not too much of a bother. Still, being hit with a mid-sized sedan caused Thor to get knocked off course. He came to a screeching (of Korean metal) halt in mid-air. More importantly?

He lost his grip on me.

Which is how, for the second time that evening, I found myself at least ten stories in the air, plummeting as a very unsafe rate of speed towards the concrete sidewalk. If it had been happening to anyone else, I would have found it darkly ironic and probably damn funny. But since this was happening to me...again...

I didn't see Thor throw the remains of the car away, hurling it towards the river, and try to speed down after me. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Terminal velocity and the law of gravity, I'm sure they were mixing together in some way to finally make the equation "Herman Schultz = Street Pizza" a reality. My arms flailed, and in the course of three seconds, I realized just how screwed I was. There was no way I could repeat the blasting-the-fire-hydrant trick from earlier in the evening, with no working gloves and no fire hydrants.

Which is why, when a gout of water caught me, I was REALLY surprised.

At about four stories, I splashed down into about five feet of cold water, chest first. The belly-flop and the resulting pain was the least of my worries, as my speed was enough that I fell out the bottom of the "pool" and kept going. But at two stories, a second mid-air "pool" caught me. Sputtering, I floated down in a small column of water, confused and wet, but at a safe falling speed. Soon, my feet touched the sidewalk, and around me, the column of water whirled away, flowing and turning in mid-air, leaving me unharmed, at a negative vertical velocity, and completely confused. After a few seconds, the water convalesced into a human form, shimmering slightly under the street lamps. It took me a second, as I rubbed the water out of my eyes, to recognize who had been my savior.

"Bench?"

Morris Bench, aka Hydro-Man, smirked as he waved at me. "Hey, Herman! Man, am I glad to see you...I've had the strangest day today."

I blinked. For one of the few times in my life, my ass was speechless. I initially met Hydro-Man during a time when Rhino was locked up and I needed some muscle for a series of bank heists. Hydro-Man got his powers from some kind of freak accident when he was a crewman on a cargo ship and got knocked overboard during a brawl between Spider-Man and Namor the Sub-Mariner. In the same twist of weird fate that gave Maxwell Dillon the power to control electricity and let Dirk Garthwaite get his hands on the abilities of a god, an experimental generator being tested in the ocean let off enough radiation to turn Bench into a man-of-water. His entire body is made up of water, and not only can he shoot himself like a high pressure fire-hose, but he can also control other sources of water. The same guy who could dump the entire Harlem River on Times Square also could shoot himself out of a shower nozzle after flashing his way through the sewers. Think a liquid version of the Sandman and you ain't too far off the mark. Not as smart as Cain Marko, though. I usually lumped Morris into the same category as Aleksei; very cunning, and nasty in a fight, but you'll never see him getting a GED.

At the time of our partnership, he had wanted revenge on Spider-Man, but I convinced him to channel his considerable abilities into much more lucrative ventures. A couple of robberies later, we were almost set for life, but on one last score, Spider-Man showed up, and Bench dropped everything to go after the wallcrawler. A few minutes later, the two of us were back in a paddy wagon on our way to the Vault. We've hooked up a few times after that, mainly for one-off jobs and the occasional team-up with larger groups of supervillains. So the source of my shock isn't seeing Bench. It's seeing Bench here.

He was still shimmering, in pure water form, as opposed to the human-looking form he could maintain (thanks to a special containment suit built for him by the Wizard), and I could make out the indentations and eddies of a smile on his face. "You're the backup Thor was talking about?"

After a few seconds, I shook my head, having finally collected my thoughts. "You were on the other end of the comms?"

"Herman, I'm just as shocked as you are," he said with a smirk. "They're stretched so thin, they shoved me in with the heavy hitters. And believe me, we drew the short straw on this one."

"You're working with the government," I asked, disbelief woven into my question.

"Yeah...it's your damn fault, too! I could be on an island somewhere in the Caribbean, but no. You always had good ideas, so I figured, for once, I'd follow your lead and maybe not end up in jail this time."

A shadow passed over us. Thor floated down from the sky, one hand gently flicking pieces of red metal out of the side of his armor as he landed. "Morris Bench. What is the situation?"

Hydro-Man let out a gurgling sigh of relief. "I never thought I'd be glad to see you flying on in. You ain't gonna believe it, Thor. Nothing's stopping him. Blondie and Spidey have been throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him, and he ain't slowing down," Hydro-Man replied. "There's a water main running under this street, a big one. Hoping I can turn it into a damn cannon and maybe rock him back on his heels."

"I don't think that will do much more than delay him," Thor replied, stepping past the two of us and looking down the block. Mjolnir rested in his grip as he stood in the middle of the street.

"Hell, it'll be a step in the right direction. If I can knock him around, maybe you can knock him down," Bench replied. He swiveled his head in my direction. "If this don't work, Herman, we're gonna need a better plan. And I hope you have one, this guy's been knocking us all over Manhattan for the past half an hour."

"Who?" I threw up my good arm in frustration, as agitated as I'd risk getting around a guy wielding a mythical hammer. "Will someone just...a name, just give me a damn name..."

"Christ, you did bring Herman. I recognized that whining down the block."

I didn't mean it, but the sigh escaped my lips nonetheless. "Damn it. I thought that was your voice on the comms crying like a little schoolgirl for help."

"Don't take it personally," Hydro-Man said as Spider-Man hung from the side of the brownstone above my head. "He's been calling me Drippy for..."

"Gentlemen, petty differences aside. Let's focus." When Thor tells you to shut up, you shut up. Still, I looked above me, and eyed the wallcrawler. He hadn't been in the best of shape when I saw him last night, and now he looked even worse. Half his mask had been torn away, and various cuts and tears adorned his costume, showing scars and scabs on his skin. Spider-Man looked like he had been through a war zone, and I had to smirk in sympathy.

"You look about how I feel, Spidey," I said.

"Yeah, same to you, Herman. Looks like you went a couple of rounds with the rest of the Sinister Six," he shot right back.

"One of them. But save that for later," I responded. "Who the heck..."

This time, the loud crash at the end of the block was an interruption I really couldn't complain about. A plume of dust and sparks rose from a hole on the third story of a brownstone on the corner of the intersection. From this distance, I could make out a human shape pulling itself from the wreckage. Before figuring out who it was, though, the form streaked away, exploding like a bullet from the home and heading back up the cross-street...

...only to come flying back a second later, this time smashing into another brownstone.

"Damn it," I heard Bench cursed as brick and mortar rained down onto the street. "I think we're gonna need bigger guns, guys. No offense, Thor."

"We're the final line of defense, Morris," Thor said with steel in his voice. "Let us try this. Spider-Man, draw a line of webbing from that lamp to that hydrant," he said pointing with his hammer to the two objects. "Place it about ankle high. And make it as strong as you can." As Spider-Man leapt into action, sailing over my head, Thor was speaking to Hydro-Man. "Morris, slip into the water main. Once he's passed over head, hit him from behind with all the force of a tidal wave. Put your entire effort in your actions. We need him to trip over that webbing. I will be waiting to hit him with Mjolnir. Pray tell, our combined efforts will hopefully stop him."

"On it." Bench's human form slipped away, turning almost instantly into a stream of water before our eyes. It flowed into a nearby drain like rain after a storm, leaving the area behind him completely dry as he absorbed every bit of water that he could.

"Herman." Thor didn't turn to look at me, but I could only imagine the look of determination on his face to match the tone of his voice. "If this doesn't work, we'll need another plan of attack. That's where you come in. Stay out of the way, but anything that you think can only assist us."

"Thor, I'm happy to help," I lied, "if you'd tell me who..."

She flew into view like an avenging angel. Covered in grime and dust, a thin trickle of blood running down her lips. Her fists were clenched, and her blonde hair was tangled and matted with sweat. "Thor," her voice, laced with steel and honey, breathed, "he's coming this way. For God's sake, I hope you got a plan."

"I do. Stand with me, and when I strike, strike as well."

"THAT'S your plan? I've been hitting him all night long and it ain't..." She paused. Her gaze turned to me. I had seen it on TV countless times, and in my mind during lonely nights, but actually being ten feet away as she hovered in the sky, my breath caught in my throat. Damn...she was hotter in person.

"What the hell is he doing here," Ms. Marvel asked her teammate. "Is he the reinforcements?"

I managed to find my breath and answer before Thor could. "I'm the backup plan." Hey, I said it without stammering. Yay me. "If what Thor and Hydro-Man are gonna do doesn't work..."

"Fine," she cut me off. "Just watch out. He's been on a rampage for the better part of an hour and we can't stop him. Spider-Man, get Herman out of the way, and get ready to jump back in."

"I'm fine here," I responded as Spider-Man landed beside me. "Just..."

I didn't even have time to ask. The intersection became a helipad he crashed into view, landing on both feet. The impact sent the nearby cars into the air, tires leaving the ground with a good two or three feet of clearance, and cracked the pavement for yards around. He was massive, bigger than I could possibly have imagined. Aleksei was a midget compared to this guy. His arms and legs bulged with muscle, his fists clenched with apparent rage. For a guy his size, his head whipped around on his massive neck, and as his eyes came to rest upon us, I was damn glad my bladder was empty.

He turned towards the four of us, his skin a pale green-gray. As I saw the gaping bite wound on his left arm, my eyes widened as I fully realized what we were dealing with. The past few days, it was the needful moans of the zombies was a constant in the back of my mind anytime I stepped outside of my warehouse. Now, though, the roar of the figure...it wasn't mournful need. It was hungry desire, mixed with the one thing I hadn't heard from any of the undead.

Anger.

The roar was unintelligible, but anyone on the planet who had seen this guy's attack on New York City knew what the huge zombie on front of us would have yelled had he still been capable of speech.

"HULK SMASH!"

X

I didn't say a word. Not even an "oh crap." Pale, lifeless eyes glared in our direction, but the look on the face of the Hulk told the whole story. Even in death, that almost endless reservoir of rage that motivated him was present. All during this impending zombie apocalypse, the ghouls had been wandering, stalking, and feeding without emotion, without any apparent semblance of rational, coherent thought, biological feeding machines on autopilot. But here, seeing the bulging, muscular undead Hulk take a slow, methodical step towards us, there was emotion. As always, the Hulk found a way to defy common convention.

The fear and anxiety I felt, oddly enough, lent my voice an aura of calm and composure. "You've been talking on the Hulk all night," I told Spider-Man, almost informing him of the obvious fact.

"Yeah. He tore into a bus over in Brooklyn and ate everyone inside," the wallcrawler answered. "He swam over here and tried to do the same thing over in Alphabet City before Ms. Marvel showed up. That was an hour ago. We haven't been able to stop him yet. He's shrugged off everything we've thrown at him."

Another step, and another. I don't know how to describe it. The Hulk wasn't running, but it was a very quick lumber. He swayed slightly with each step, his foot breaking the road beneath him into little chips of asphalt as he moved. His eyes appeared to be locked on Thor, standing about halfway down the block. The Avenger, unbloodied, stood his ground, hammer held at the ready, Horatio at the bridge. Yes, I've read a poem, don't look so surprised. Beside him, floating a foot off the ground, the bruised Ms. Marvel clenched her hands together. Half an hour of failure to stop the Hulk didn't matter to her. What mattered was stopping him here and now. Screw the odds, this ends here. That's how Spider-Man kept beating me. And Venom. And Doctor Octopus. Just keep moving on and never, ever give up.

In that moment, I got it. The whole hero thing made sense to me. I had lived it fighting Electro, the Vulture, and surviving my encounters with the Punisher. It sounded so clichéd, but never give up, keep banging away. Sooner or later, it would catch, and you'd win.

The windows vibrated with each step as the Hulk closed in on them. They didn't move, didn't flinch, as a low growl escaped from the massive zombie. His arms swung as best they could to aid his lumber. His teeth were red, his hair greasy and matted, and his hands were flecked with red and white, flesh and bone. As he got closer, the growl rose in volume, teeth bared. Hunger. Anger. That's what the zombie spoke of, rage at...what? Being dead? Still have that hunger inside of him? In any case, hopefully in a few moments, we wouldn't have to worry about those questions anymore. Focused solely on the blonde buffet in front of him, the Hulk didn't see the trip-wire of webbing that Spider-Man had laid down, stretching around a lamppost and a fire hydrant. He hit into it ankle first. The webbing bent forward with him for a second, before snapping with a twang. The Hulk's forward motion sent him stumbling. The gaze never waved off of the Avengers, even as his arms swung to break his fall.

That's when the sewer behind him exploded. The manhole cover flew into the air, flipping end over end, as a geyser of water shot from the street like an artillery shell. As the Hulk lumbered off-balance, the high-pressure fountain suddenly changed direction, bending ninety degrees like water flowing through a pipe joint. The top of the jet of water turned into a fist just before it slammed into the back of the Hulk. Even at the time of impact, water still gushed from the open manhole, providing extra force as the guy behind the attack, Hydro-Man, followed through, jarring and pushing the Hulk forward as best he could. But, even under the combined efforts of Spider-Man and Hydro-Man, the Hulk only stumbled. He didn't collapse. He didn't fall. And over the sound of water rushing from the water main, the rumbling howl of the Hulk was easily audible.

"Be ready!" And over the howl of the Hulk, the booming shout of the God of Thunder conquered all. His hand moved back slightly, his feet firmly planted on the vibrating asphalt. Ms. Marvel brought her hands up over her head, clasping them together as the Hulk fell towards them. Neither of them budged as the Hulk fell to his knees in front of them, splintering the street as he collapsed. The fountain of water turned into the air, backing off to let the Avengers hopefully work their mojo. Thor swung his hands behind him, using both arms to wind up for a big hammer shot. As he did, the Hulk's face came up. From where I stood, the gristle and bone stood out in his mouth as he snarled, bearing his teeth at the pair of heroes.

"FOR ASGARD!" With that battle cry, the mighty Thor swung Mjolnir with both hands, aiming squarely for the exposed skull of the Hulk. Beside him, the cry of Ms. Marvel was higher and sharper as she brought down both hands, an axehandle blow on the back of his head. Both shots landed at the same time...

What the hell happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object? You could see the impact, waves of force shimmering in the air. Where it hit the street below the Hulk, the asphalt just crumbled. Car windows shattered and the frames bent. The fountain of water that was Hydro-Man rippled and splashed like someone threw a large rock into him. Just before the sound hit Spider-Man and I, I saw the Hulk's face flatten against the shattered road. Then the roar hit, and my body stumbled backwards before hitting the edge of the brownstone behind me. My eyes closed under the assault as the force assaulted the talon cuts and gunshot wound, vibrating the skin and causing me to bite my lip. It was like standing against a wall while an ocean wave crashed into you. The windows behind me shattered, however, spilling glass down over where I stood. My ears filled with a rumbling noise, which quickly faded away. After a few seconds, I opened my eyes. The glass crunched under my feet as I walked forward, moving between two cars that no longer had windows. Spider-Man hopped onto the car beside me before leaping down to the street, and behind the wreckage, I could see Hydro-Man reforming himself into his human-shaped water form. The three of us closed in on the Hulk, moving very warily as we approached. Thor has his hammer at the ready, clutching it with both hands in front of his chest, while Ms. Marvel gently floated down to the street. She let out the first sigh of relief of all of us as we looked down at the body.

"Whoa," said Hydro-Man. "That was a lot of gun."

You couldn't see the top of the Hulk's head. Ms. Marvel's axehandle had driven it into the ground, leaving only the greasy black hair visible. The rest of his body was sprawled out, arms and legs splayed. It wasn't moving. No groans, no angry growls, nothing.

"You guys did a number on him." Hydro-Man flowed to the front of the group across the wreckage, his lower body easily moving over the cracks. "Couldn't have done that earlier tonight? It could have saved us a lot of time."

"We TRIED, Hydro-Man," Ms. Marvel replied. "Hitting a moving target's head while you're also moving isn't the easiest thing on the planet to do."

"Hey, whatever," Hydro-Man said. "He's done, and he's dead, right? He ain't gonna hurt anyone now..."

Pause.

"Herman, why are you backing up?"

"Because, Morris, you just taunted fate." My ass was back between the cars, ready to duck away as a moment's notice once the fateful words were out of Hydro-Man's mouth. "That's the Hulk. No offense intended, but odds are the three of you just gave him a headache and he'll be back up again." A Saturn was now the car of choice between me and the unmoving Hulk.

"Oh, come on..."

"No, Morris. Herman may be right. The Hulk is a creature of incredible..."

WHAM!

Thor's words were cut off as Ms. Marvel ducked to one knee, and drove her first into the back of the Hulk's head.

WHAM!

A second time. She put everything her tired body had into the blow.

WHAM!

WHAM!

WHAM!

Finally, she stood up, shaking her hand. "You were saying, Thor?"

"I was saying, the Hulk is a creature of incredible resilency. It would be wise to treat him with wary respect and caution even beyond a second death. Spider-Man," Thor said to the wall-crawler, "please call Colonel Fury, and tell him we require a SHIELD Alpha team immediately. And to please bring plasmathrowers to completely incinerate the Hulk's corpse."

"On it." Spider-Man turned away, putting a hand up to his ear.

From my safe perch behind the car, I studied the body of the Hulk where it lay. "Damn. He's bigger then I remembered. You don't think...whatever's causing this caused him to mutate or something, do you?"

"No." Ms. Marvel was looking around where the stood as she responded to me. "You saw the bite wound on his arm. I'm willing to bet that he got bit, and it just made him angry. And then, when he didn't heal, he got angrier. And when he died, he was really angry. I've fought the Hulk before, Shocker, and he was really pissed off when we fought. The beating he put out tonight? It's about that level."

"Damn. You ok?"

She looked over at me for a second. "You concerned, or just making conversation?"

Some men would have been put off by that statement. But if she was being a bit snarky to me...hell, I'm friends with Boomerang. I found it a bit comforting. "Hey, if he gets back up, I'd like to know if you can handle him, or if I should run screaming for help."

"Huh. Well...I'm gonna make sure..."

She bent over in front of me. Well, not in front, she was ten or fifteen feet away, but still, my "great butt in tight spandex" radar was pinging very nicely as she bent at the waist.

"...that he doesn't get back up."

As I watched, she grabbed a piece of asphalt; a large piece of it, that had cracked during the fight. Grunting a little, she slowly stood up, tearing the asphalt away from the rest of the street like a piece of duct tape from the roll. Thor just raised an eyebrow, silently watching as Ms. Marvel turned around, holding the road over her head for a moment before slamming it down on top of the Hulk's head. As it settled, she leaned over the flat surface and shoved the asphalt down, pinning his head in between the two pieces of street.

"And, for the record?" She dusted her hands off, clapping them in front of me. "I'm peachy."

I'm sure she is.

"It looks like you didn't need my help, Thor," I said.

"Aye. But one should always have a backup plan."

"Nice Hulk sandwich, Ms. Marvel. 30 minutes for the Alpha team." Spider-Man was on the hood of the car I was now leaning against. "Fury'll try to get them here quicker, but apparently there was a...problem up at Bellevue."

"30 minutes," Hydro-Man asked in disbelief. "What are we supposed to do in the mean time, sit here sucking on our thumbs?"

"Actually, yeah. Fury said to keep an eye on the Hulk and make sure he's really down for the count."

"Great. We're in the middle of Manhattan standing watch over the dead body of the Hulk." Hydro-Man threw his hands into the air with a wet swish. "No offense, but that ain't the patch plan Eyepatch ever came up with."

"It is the plan, Morris. We'll keep watch over the Hulk, but you are correct. We are exposed out here," Thor said, waving his arm to encompass the street. "All of us will have to be wary."

After a few seconds, Hydro-Man nodded. "The Army's been through here, right? Hopefully they got most of the ghouls already."

"Yeah. Zombies never jump out when you least expect it." Spider-Man's sarcasm was...tempered somewhat at the moment. "The optimism's nice, but it's misplaced at the moment, Bench."

"Yeah...well..." Bench replied, "all things considered, I'd rather be..."

A massive hand lashed out and tried to wrap itself around Hydro-Man's ankle. The thick fingers passed through the watery form, making an empty fist as Bench quickly flowed his body away from the attack. "...on the beach," he finished as the green hand slammed onto the street. "Yo, guys. I don't think he's down for the count."

The large piece of asphalt Ms. Marvel had slammed down onto the Hulk's shoulders was slowly lifting into the air. From the shadows under the asphalt, a low, angry growl could he heard, mixed in with the cracking of the still-intact. "You have got to be kidding me," Ms. Marvel proclaimed as she leapt into the air, winding up and streaking forward, one fist extended to smack the form lifting up. Teeth bared, she was going for another knockout punch, but the Hulk landed his first. His other fist shot out, and slammed Ms. Marvel right in the face. It was like she flew into an adamantium wall, crumpling to the ground, moving slightly after the impact. Has she been a normal woman, she would have been easy prey for a horde of zombies, and even the stunned (and stunning) Ms. Marvel would have fallen at the hands of the Hulk. But instead, the other hand pushed against the sidewalk. The roar shook the windows as, with a final shove, the asphalt tumbled to the ground, the impact shaking the street slightly. There he was again, the Hulk, standing tall in the middle of the ruined street. His shoulders weren't heaving, he wasn't breathing hard, but there he was, his eyes narrow, and focused on the fallen Ms. Marvel.

It only took one step towards her for Thor to act. "I HAVE HAD ENOW! STAND TO, FOUL CREATURE!" A swing that would have taken the head off of a normal human being cracked into the side of the Hulk's jaw. Anyone else might have admired their handy work as the Hulk's head rocked backwards, but Mjolnir slammed into the temple of the huge zombie. I watched, amazed, as Thor smacked the Hulk harder than I've ever seen, and that included Aleksei. One more shot, an uppercut to the jaw, rocked the head of the Hulk straight back. He slowly wavered backwards, swaying on his feet. Thor stood in front of him, waiting for the Hulk to fall over.

Back...back...forward. The Hulk's head snapped to the front, towering over the God of Thunder. Slowly, his eyes met Thor's, his snarling barely audible.

"By Odin..." was all Thor could get out before the Hulk slammed his hand together on either side of Thor's head.

It was like squishing a fly. Behind Thor, the asphalt shattered in a straight line, the air shimmering like I had let out a high-level vibro-blast. The Hulk held his hands for a second, before letting go. I expected Thor's head to look like a Jujeefruit, and for the Hulk to just lean forward and start feasting on the brains that had to be leaking out of Thor's skull...

Thor just lifted the back of his wrist to his nose. The zombified Hulk just stood there, staring, not trying to eat the god. Thor pulled his wrist away. From where we stood off to the side, it was easy to see the red blood dripping from one nostril. Slowly, Thor's eyes went from his wrist to the eyes of the Hulk. "So be it, creature." Even his low, quiet statement had the intensity of a thunderstorm.

"Pardon me..."

Ms. Marvel leapt from her crouching position to uppercut the Hulk, her fist  
slamming into the middle of the Hulk's jaw. "...but I'd like in on this dance too."

And the brawl began. Years of teamwork, of fighting side-by-side, were the key to Ms. Marvel and Thor's assault as they hammered away at the Hulk. But...this was the Hulk. He moved slow, almost uncoordinated, like a puppet on strings. Whenever a shot landed, it staggered one of the Avengers.

"We gotta get in there and help them!" Spider-Man, Hydro-Man, and myself stood on the side of the street, just watching the brawl. It was the wallcrawler who spoke up as the Hulk backhanded Thor just as Ms. Marvel drove her fist into his ribs, to no effect.

"And do what? Nothing we did stopped him!" Hydro-Man shook his head, drops of water hitting the side of my already soaked face. "We'd just be in the damn way."

"I ain't gonna sit here and do nothing. You keep an eye on Schultz, and get on the horn for that damn SHIELD team!" With that, Spider-Man leapt onto the car, and sprung off. The Hulk just missed with a wild roundhouse swing when Spidey lept onto his back and shot webbing around his arms. "Ride em cowboy," he yelled as the Hulk reached back to try to pull him off.

"We ain't gonna be able to put him down, Herman," Bench said next to me. "Hell, at this point, I think a nuke's just gonna piss him off even more. If you got any great ideas..."

"Sorry, Morris. I'm currently terrified beyond all capability for rational thought." Throughout the past few days, Aleksei and I, along with apparently most of our villainous colleagues, had managed, with careful thought and creativity to mow down zombies like wheat, and just run rings around them. None of them could stand up to anything we threw at them, as long as you got them in the head. But here was the Hulk, a zombie, and Thor and Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man and Hydro-Man had been slamming him in the head for an hour, and the worst it had done was stun him. Or put him down, only for him to get right back up again. My mind ran down the possible answers. Was the Hulk's skull just too thick? Was his brain as muscular as the rest of him and just impervious to anything they could throw at him? Did his brain have some kind of regeneration factor when he was alive and it came over into death? Or, was the Hulk truly too angry to die?

"You gotta have some idea, Herman," Bench told me. "He tore through a bus full of survivors and ate them like they were candy corn. Bones and all. Just crunched and swallowed. If we don't stop him, he's gonna end up as the Monster Who Ate Manhattan."

"Jesus, Bench...it's the damn Hulk! My strategy would probably be to unleash Aleksei and get the hell out of the way!" I saw the look on his face, a look a lot of people usually tossed my way, the "well, we couldn't break it, now what do we do, Herman" look. Well, the Hulk wasn't a damn safe, he was at least a ton of really pissed off Jolly Green Giant. Behind me, Hydro-Man was screaming into the SHIELD communicator with a complete and utter lack of tact. What worried me most about the whole thing was Thor's bloody nose. Kind of like the Wrecker, and definitely like Aleksei, I had never seen Thor bleed. If the Wrecker could take all kind of abuse without bleeding, and that included shots from Thor, and if Aleksei went hand-to-hand with the Hulk and at best, walked away bruised...what was it about the undead that let them go after the invulnerable and hurt them like they were normal people? It wasn't strength. MACH-IV had said his armor protected him all the time, and the story he told, the Living Laser could walk among them and not get hurt.

And maybe most telling of all, the Hulk wasn't trying to eat them or devour them whole, but just wail away on them. Three Avengers, who would have been a tasty meal to a horde of undead, were instead punching bags. What the hell...it was like everything I knew about zombies was being re-written in mid-story!

"They're coming as fast as they can, and I think I just pissed Nick Fury off. Like, really pissed off." Hydro-Man was flanking me, his eyes, like mine, staring at the flurry of brawling going on in front of us. As the Hulk flipped Spider-Man off his back just in time for Thor to catch him on an ear, Hydro-Man said, "there has to be some way to get at his brain. That's gotta be it, Herman, his brain's not getting hurt at all."

Bench was probably right. "Thick skull, cushioned brain, hell, maybe there's just so much brain mass now...he gets muscle mass when he's pissed, maybe the Hulk's brain got so big, it's absorbing all the impact. Hell, extra brain tissue might explain why he's a little more emotional and cunning than a normal zombie," I surmised. "That's assuming he CAN be put down. Maybe he's immortal..."

Bench raised an eyebrow at me. "Don't say that. It'll give me nightmares." After a few seconds of watching the fight, he spoke up again. "How about just shooting him with your gloves, Herman? I mean...it's just waves of force, right? It'll be like sound going through water. Hell, anytime someone blasts me with sound, it really hurts and scrambles me for a little bit."

"Say...that's not a bad idea, Bench. Problem is, I'm shorted out." I carefully lifted my hands, showing him the non-working gauntlets. The water had stopped dripping from them at least. "I got tossed in a fountain earlier tonight. Everything I got is freakin' waterlogged. Plus," I said, pointing to my shoulder, "I got shot earlier tonight, and firing anything from this side's would be like jamming a red hot poker in there. But damn, I like your idea. Don't supposed Klaw's in the city tonight, is he?"

Hydro-Man laughed at my sentence. "Waterlogged? Herman, if you needed to dry out, you should have just said so. Open your gloves up." He must have seen the confused look on my face. "I'm gonna pull the water out of your gloves, man."

Oh. Oh, damn!

"That's an even better idea, Morris." I popped the side panels on both of my gauntlets, exposing the wet circuits to the air. As I tipped my gloves forward to look inside, water pooled in the bottom. From what I could see, nothing was black or shorted out. My fail-safe had cut in the second I tried to fire, leaving me helpless but saving my gloves and the vibro-blast mechanism. I probably couldn't say the same for my soaked and shredded suit, but that was a defensive concern. Getting my smashers back to working order so I could both defend myself and go on the attack was the primary concern at the moment, even if I was currently the One-Armed Kid.

I held my hands out in front of me, turning to face Hydro-Man as the three-on-one brawl raged in the street beside me. "You realize if this works, it'll mean we're gonna have to jump into the middle of that, right?"

"Hey, you know me. I got a history of stupid ideas. Just happy that I have you on board with this one," he smirked. His arms came up, his watery-hands palms down over the open panels of my gloves. I watched as he licked his lips, an unconscious motion for a man currently made of water. "Damn, Herman, your stuff is soaked. You fell in a fountain, or went swimming in one?"

"I fell into a fountain, and I fell THROUGH you, Morris. Come on, come on," I urged him.

"Alright, alright." Ever see water defy gravity? Morris just slowly turned his hands upwards, tilting the palms at an angle, and the water came pouring out of my gloves. It flowed from the open panels like it was coming from a spigot, merging with Hydro-Man's hands. My brain couldn't quite handle the idea of water running uphill, but luckily, it wasn't long before the well ran dry. A few spare drops, and Bench pulled his hands back. "Try them now, Herman."

Two clicks meant the fail safe mode was still on. One click just meant I was out of juice. I raised my good arm, and pointed it at a nearby 'NO PARKING' sign. Knowing that if I only heard one click meant I'd have to get in the game, and join the Avengers and my former partner in crime in going toe-to-toe with the Incredible freakin' Hulk. Knowing that fact, I still prayed for just one click. One click, I thought as I gently thumbed the trigger.

The sign shook violently on its post as the level-one blast clipped it. "Whoa," I exclaimed at the piece of metal slammed back and forth on its axis.

"Guess you still got some juice left in you," Morris said with approval. "So how you want to break up this brawl?"

"One second." This was going to hurt. Badly. But I needed to know if I was at half-strength or able to go full tilt if needed. I held my bad arm up with help from my good arm, and took the same aim at the sign. Pre-wincing, I pushed the trigger. The blast's recoil ripped up my arm and slammed into my wound, even with the extra absorption from my quilted armor. No hot pokers, but it was like someone had just dropped a bunch of razor-sharp ice cubes. "Ah! Mother..." I muttered as I gently shook my hand.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, Morris. Ooof, that one hurt..."

"So," Hydro-Man gently urged, "what's the plan?"

I was popping open the compartment on my belt as I replied. "Give me a second. Gonna swap out my batteries and fresh ones. Damn sure don't want to run out of juice if he's bearing down on me." Switching out the power packs gave me time to think. Luckily, the compartment had kept them dry, and shorting myself out wasn't a concern. Hydro-Man's plan made sense. Even now, Thor, Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Man were beating the Hulk about the head. They used fists, pieces of the road, and currently in the case of Ms. Marvel, a streetlamp that bent as it impacted the side of his head. But nothing seemed to stop him. Stop the brain, stop the ghoul. But if you can't get to the brain by breaking the walls down, then just ignore the walls. If the Hulk's skull was unbreakable, that meant, in theory (normally the word 'theory' intrigues me, but right now...) they'd be a perfectly transmitter for my vibrations. Just like Hydro-Man said, sound travels through water because it's a great medium for it. If what I'm hoping is true is true, then a couple good blasts to his head might turn his brain into jelly. If we can't blow a hole in the Hulk's brain, we can maybe make it leak out his ears.

Spider-Man had just been swatted away like a fly as I clicked my gloves shut. The jitters and nerves I would have expected to have at this moment were absent. I had a plan. I was going to stick to it. And if it didn't work, all I had was the Hulk pissed at me. Well, if I could handle a drunk Aleksei, I could handle an angry Hulk, right?

"Can you get me airborne, Morris? I want to be above him so his skull takes the brunt of my blast."

"Yeah. No problem." To Morris' left, a fire hydrant suddenly exploded. The cover banged off the front steps to a house as the water shot out, only to immediately bend in midair as Morris directed it into his body. He grew, getting bigger and bigger as he absorbed most of the water. "It's gonna be a bit of a ride, though. You're gonna be floating in like two feet of water," his voiced gurgled.

"I know. Just keep me as steady as you can," I replied. The water eventually tapered out, leaving the normally six-foot-five Morris Bench a ten foot tall creature. His hand surrounded me as it reached out and grabbed me around the lower...

Oh, Christ, that was cold! I shivered as the water collected around my legs and waist. After a few more seconds, Morris lifted me off the ground. My body almost immediately sank a few inches, but the water...grew thicker around me. Bench was increasing the density of the water. Think about how you can float easily in salt water as opposed to fresh water, and there's your science lesson for the day. This was the third time in almost as many nights that...no, fourth time...that I was airborne. Swinging through the air with Spider-Man, being hurled to my imminent death by the Vulture, hanging on for dear life on the waist of Thor, and now floating in mid-air in the hand of Hydro-Man. All I need is a mid-air spin with Ms. Marvel and I'll have probably completed some kind of Xbox Achievement. Hell, maybe I should look into getting some kind of flying device if I survive this. Maybe check with the Tinkerer and see if he's got something lying around.

Slowly, Hydro-Man moved us out into the street. I felt like I was in the deep end of a swimming pool as he carefully floated me through the air. The three Avengers were just a bit slower now, and Thor's face sported a nasty bruise on one cheek. The Hulk didn't seem fazed, still moving with that slow, half-second hesitation with each of his action. Focused on trying to stop the Hulk, I don't think anyone noticed me and the ten-foot tall drink of water gliding into position. "How far up do you need to be?"

"Just a little higher!" Hydro-Man complied, and within second, I was just a little bit behind the Hulk, but thirteen feet above him, five-or-six feet above his head. The green monster had yet to see me or acknowledge my presence, instead throwing blows that the god of thunder parried with his hammer. From here, the crown of Hulk's head was visible. Hopefully, that was the thickest part of his skull. The temple was the thinnest, so the top should be the strongest, right? It sounded right to me, and I was the guy with the vibro-smashers.

"Thor! Ms. Marvel! Hold him still!" I was giving orders to the Avengers. Holy crap. Thor looked up at me for a second with a quizzical glance, but he nodded and followed the lead of Ms. Marvel. She had ducked underneath the Hulk's massive arm and wrapped hers around his thigh, trying her best to pin him in place. Thor did likewise, rolling under a wild swing before planting his feet in the broken pavement and squeezing the opposite leg. The Hulk gave off a choked roar, his arms flailing about, unable to turn around and hit the two Avengers. Spider-Man leapt from the Hulk's back, and took up a position off to the side, ready to leap back into the fray if need be but making sure to not get into the way of Ms. Marvel and Thor.

"Hope to Christ this works," I said as I took aim. With both hands. Years of reflexive conditioning saw me leveling both guns at the swiveling skull of the Hulk. Level three. That would be a good level to start at. Slowly, I let out my held breath and squeeze the thumb triggers.

Pain ripped up my left arm from the blast. I stopped firing, cursing as the blasts went wide, impacting on the street in front of the Hulk. God damn it. My shoulder throbbed as the recoil energy left my suit and went for the path of least resistance; the exposed skin and blood of my gunshot wound. I wanted to spit out a vulgar swear word, but one look at Thor struggling to keep the Hulk in place...it would have kind of been like swearing in front of Gandhi. Taking another deep breath, I mentally prepped myself for the pain, and shot off another set of blast. The discomfort was still there, but the shots slammed into the Hulk's head, shaking his greasy hair. His head whipped backwards, straining against his shoulders to get a glance at whoever had just dared to hurt him.

Did I hurt him? I had his attention, and that fact reminded me that I needed to fire again. The pulse of air elicited another roar of anger. On the street, the leg Ms. Marvel was holding dragged a bit as he tried to turn and face me, until she slammed her feet into the asphalt and held him firm. My shoulder was already issuing a low-level protest, but another level-three snapped the Hulk's head around.

This was really going to hurt. Time to up the proverbial ampage "Hold on," I yelled, hoping Thor and Ms. Marvel could hear me. Individual pulses were getting to the Hulk. This time, I powered up to a level-four blast and kept my thumbs down on the triggers, firing off a steady stream of vibro-blasts, one right after the other. The air pulsed in waves as I kept my fists pointed in the general direction of the Hulk's noggin. My left hand dipped slightly, pins and needles poking every nerve after the first few waves, with a drillbit going in my shoulder. The asphalt underneath the Hulk jumped, the small chips and pieces of the street being knocked around. Ms. Marvel shut her eyes and held on for dear life, while Thor shoved against the Hulk's legs to hold him in place. The green zombie roared under my assault, his head whipping around as he pushed and strained against the two Avengers holding him in place. I had to keep adjust my aim, as Hydro-Man didn't make the most stable of firing platforms. Sacrificing concentrated power for a wider arc of fire, I grit my teeth together, pouring it on as best I could. But he didn't fall. The Hulk turned in place, screaming either in pain or in annoyance, but he stood his ground. Damn it, I had to be affecting him. What the hell was his brain on, steroids?

I kept it up for as long as I could, but eventually, my thumbs fell from the trigger out of fatigue. My hands tingled slightly. My shoulder throbbed horribly. And the Hulk was still standing.

"Damn it...that should have worked, Herman," I heard the voice of Hydro-Man say behind me.

"I know!" Frustrated, I tried to lift my arms again. "I gotta do it at level five!"

"Level five? You're gonna end up driving him through the street," Bench countered.

"Well if you got..."

The roar caused the street to rumble again. One massive leg kicked out, and suddenly, Thor was embedded in the side of a parked car. How the hell a single car alarm hadn't gone off tonight, I have no clue, but that just meant you could hear the metal bending as the Avenger slammed shoulder first into the automobile. Ms. Marvel tried to let go before he turned his attention to her, but the Hulk just managed to grab her by her blonde mane. She yelled in pain and surprise, both hands going to his wrist to make him let go, but he had a plan for her, and it already involved letting her go. No longer held to the ground, the Hulk spun around, and with one hand, hurled Ms. Marvel through the air. Before she could recover, she passed right through the body of Hydro-Man, crashing through his chest and exiting out his back. As she impacted Morris, I suddenly felt myself sinking slightly in his watery fist, before it suddenly fell apart, becoming a mass of liquid crashing to the ground, and me right behind it. The shock of the impact must have broken Hydro-Man's concentration, as most of the extra water he had absorbed splashed onto the street. I followed a second later, managing to land on my feet and not break my ankles in the process. I was getting up from my crouched landing position when the shadow fell over me. A single, low growl emenated from the source of the shadow. I was raising my gloves to fire a point-blank shot, but a massive hand simply slapped them back down, the impact felt all the way up my arms. Slowly, knowing exactly what I was going to see.

Ok, no. I didn't expect that. The pale green flesh, the red specks in his teeth, and how his shoulders didn't heave up and down, that was par for the damn course.

But it was his eyes.

Instead of fading to white or yellow like every other zombie so far here in the Borough of the Damned, the Hulk stared at me with dark red eyes. Threads of white could be seen, but the majority of his irises were a deep blood color, swirling like the tails of a Japanese fighting fish. His eyes weren't narrowed, but anger was still etched on the Hulk's face. And while the other ghouls would still have a vacant look on their faces even as they pawed at my body, the Hulk focused directly on to me. Almost like he knew me, or remembered me, or was looking forward to kill me. Or maybe all three.

"Oh, cr..." I got out as the green zombie pulled his fist back.

I felt something lightly touch the side of my waist, before I was violently yanked to the left. The space where my head had been was occupied by the massive right hand of the Hulk a second later as I flew off my feet, pulled along waist first by whatever had grabbed me. By the time I oriented myself and looked down to see what had grabbed, Spider-Man had pulled me all way to the side of the street, plucking me out of mid-air and yanking the webbing away from me with a snap of his wrist. "Thanks," I actually told him as he set me back down on my feet.

"No problem. You just owe me about a thousand more." Even in the face of danger with the wisecracks. "But I'll forget about them if you can figure out a way to put this guy down."

"Get Reed Richards or contract A.I.M, wallcrawler. I'm stumped. The Hulk isn't not like any zombie I've ev..."

"GET DOWN!" Spider-Man was already in motion, tackling me as he yelled out his warning. We both hit the street a second before a Chevrolet Cavalier slammed into the wall of the brownstone, breaking the windows and smashing into the living room beyond.

Stone and glass fell onto the street as I raised my head. Between the parked cars, I could see two legs, thick as tree trunks, walking towards where Spider-Man and me lay. A low, growling tone reached my ears as the Hulk, with a slight jerk in his motions, stalked in my direction. As I quickly tried to get back to my feet, a loud voice yelled over the footsteps of the approaching Hulk.

"YOU WILL NOT TURN YOUR BAC..."

As I pulled myself up using the car, the Hulk just reached backwards and slapped Thor across the face. His blood red eyes didn't deviate as he blindly hit the Avenger and sent him sprawling backwards. Even as Thor fell back to the street, a geyser of water sprayed up from the asphalt just in front of the Hulk, and a large fist made of the entirety of Hydro-Man's body punched the Hulk in the chest, only for the hand to break up and flow around the torso as the Hulk kept going forward against the force of the impact.

"I think he's got eyes only for you, Herman," Spider-Man said as another attempt at Hydro-Man to slow the Hulk down came to nothing. "Hold on, we're getting you out of here." He put his arm around my waist, and I held on to him as Spider-Man shot a line of webbing to the top of a nearby brownstone. As he tugged on the line to pull us up into the air, the Hulk ignored the chains of water wrapped around his leg, shoving the cars out of the way before reaching for me with a gnarled fist.

Before he could grab me, I felt a tug, and left my feet as Spider-Man swung down the sidewalk, shooting off a new line of webbing towards another brownstone.

And like that, we were off.


	28. Shocker vs the Incredible Hulk

"Faster! Gotta go faster," I urgently called into Spider-Man's ear.

"You're not exactly a stabilizing influence, Herman! I'm going as fast I can!"

"Well so is he!" Half a block behind us, the Hulk landed on the sidewalk, cracking the concrete from the impact. Slowly, he turned to face us, and then launched himself into the air again. His motions were still like a puppet, jerky and a bit wild, and it took him a second to readjust his "aim" before jumping after us again. But man, who needs to fly when you can leap tall buildings in a bound or two?

He had been after us for the past five blocks. As Spider-Man swung down the residential streets with me in tow, the Hulk had leapt after us. We passed over abandoned cars, burned bodies, and the general debris of a fleeing populace. The Hulk would leap off the sidewalks, from the center of street, and even touching on the side of a building for a split second before pushing right back off, some kind of crazy undead parkour runner. Spider-Man was using the rooftops and streetlamps for leverage, going faster than I could ever have run. But the Hulk kept up with us, not letting us drop out of his sight for a second.

"What the hell did you do to tick him off, Herman? Maybe you're on to something blasting him in the head." Spider-Man hung a tight corner, taking us around to a cross street. Within seconds, the Hulk slammed into the edge of the apartment building at the intersection and leapt away, bouncing off the street, still on our tail.

"I ain't about to stop and try it again! Where the hell is everyone else? If he catches up with us, we're done for!"

"Don't worry! We have a backup plan," he shouted over his shoulder as he whipped around yet another corner.

"I thought I was the backup plan!" At the speed we were swinging through the air, I couldn't tell if the Hulk was getting closer, but the entire Eastern Time Zone was "too close" in my mind right now. Being chased by an undead Hulk was bad. Being chased by an undead Hulk who's apparently fixated solely on you is worse. Was I that damn tasty in the eyes of the undead? Now the Hulk, first the zombies ignoring the Vulture and coming right at me. Did I get marked somewhere along the line? With my luck, those magic healing pills Boomerang gave me made me give off pheromones that attracted the undead. Could have attracted, say, stunning blondes in Spandex, but no...

"Blasting him in the head didn't work, so this is the backup to the backup plan!"

"How many backup plans do we have?"

"Three. Six, if Hank Pym's with us! Now, hold on, we're gonna swing around this corner and hit the ground!"

In mid-air, he swung me around, and now I was hanging from his neck. As best I could, I clung to Spider-Man with one good arm and one bad arm as he spun another line of webbing and took a wide turn around the corner. We were in a more run-down neighborhood now, with crumbling brownstones and a few shuttered stores. Hell's Kitchen? I didn't even know from all the spins and turns we made. "Hang on," Spider-Man yelled again as he turned onto the new street. Instead of shooting a new bit of webbing, he dove towards the street, arms and legs extended to take the impact, soaring just a few scant feet underneath where Ms. Marvel whooshed overhead.

I turned my head just as the Hulk turned the corner. He landed just past the intersection, and had leapt back into the air when Ms. Marvel dove at him, both fists extended in front of her. The audible crack of the impact snapped at my ears as they collided. The Hulk suddenly changed direction as the blonde Avenger hit him with everything she had, stopping him cold and pushing him towards the street. As he fell, she soared right after him, never letting up for a moment. The Hulk slammed back-first into the pavement an instant before Ms. Marvel drove herself into him, cratering the big guy into the street. The Hulk's body bowed slightly, his waist sinking into the pavement from the impact. As Spider-Man came to a halt, Ms. Marvel crouched on his chest, one hand raised, and pounded a might blow into him. And another. One hand kept her balance while the other hand was like a damn jackhammer, just punch after punch into the head of the Hulk. Each punch was accompanied with a shriek-like sound of anger and fury from the blonde bombshell, artillery-like blows trying to finally put the massive zombie down for good, sending pieces of the street flying into the air...

It was just one arm, casually swatting her away. It was almost like a shove, just one green hand pushing her off of him and through the air into a pick-up truck parked on the side of the road. She smashed into the side-panel and flipped into the back of the truck's cargo bay, disappearing from view. Using both arms, the Hulk slowly pushed his way out of the crater. From where Spider-Man and I stood, we could both see the blood red eyes peering at us from underneath hooded lids.

"I'm gonna run out of webbing at this rate," Spider-Man said as he grabbed my waist again. "Hold on, we'll line up Tho..."

The asphalt whipped through the air, throw side-arm by the Hulk. At close range, not even the wallcrawler's split-second reflexes could help him. Spider-Man took the brunt of the attack as the street slammed into him, knocking him away from where I stood. Part of the asphalt struck my wounded arm, filling my vision with white stars in the process as I spun away, clutching my shoulder in reflex. It took a few seconds to clear my head as I gritted my teeth, cursing under my breath at the pain. By the time I opened my eyes and reassessed the situation, he was towering over me.

His chest was dented, surely with broken bones or bruised necrotic muscle from all the impacts the Hulk had taken from Ms. Marvel and Thor. But the skin was unbroken, a uniform pale gray-green. My brain locked up...the rational, conscious part of it, at any rate. Fear just got ball four and took its base. Instead of doing the right thing and running the hell away as fast as my tired legs could take me, I slowly raised my head, taking in every part of the massive form standing in front of me. He could have knocked me dead in that moment. One flick of his finger and odds are he could have sent my head into the atmosphere. But instead, the Hulk was a statue, unmoving. My throat went from dry to parched as I took in the green giant. This was the Hulk, a guy who tossed Thor and Ms. Marvel around like toy cars, the warrior who caused an evacuation of New York City a few months back with just a few words. This was the guy who gave the toughest guy I knew, the Rhino, all the hell he could handle, and even gave the Juggernaut a run for his money. Even dead, his muscles bulged under his skin. But it was his eyes that held my attention. I could make out a few spots of pale white as the red liquid inside made lazy circles, like a school of fish swimming on the ocean floor. Whatever the Hulk was, he was a different kind of undead, one that could turn off its hunger and act with a little more focus.

I should have been running. But it was my own curiosity that rooted me in place. "What...what the hell do you want with me?"

The responding growl was low and throaty, and served to remind me that I was standing in front of the Hulk, who apparently wanted to kill me. I finally took a step backwards, getting ready to turn and run, which served to save my ass. His finger just lightly tapped my chest as he flicked it in my direction, casually trying to knock me away like I was a housefly. If I had taken it directly...is there a medical term for "a sucking chest wound without the massive external trauma?" Luckily for me, I didn't need to learn it at that moment because his attack barely grazed my chest.

That was a rib, I remembered thinking as I soared through the air backwards. I slammed into the pavement, the back of my head cracking against the hard asphalt. Even if my suit had still been functioning, I probably would have still flown the fifteen or twenty feet I just had. The padding of my mask did save me from anything worse than a series of bright stars shooting across my vision. It didn't take anything away, though, from the fact that one of my ribs was broken.

Jesus and all the little drummer children, I was a piñata of injuries. Slashed, burned, shot, punched, not to mention almost drowned, almost stabbed, and almost falling-to-my-death. Even groaning caused a shooting pain through my lower torso, and forcing myself to sit up made it worse. Didn't have a choice, though. I had to see what the pounding was that was making the street around me jump. And, just like I had imagined, it was a lumbering, charging Hulk, a few seconds away from stomping his foot down on my head and ending my brief, shining career as a quasi-press-ganged-Avenger, as well as, oh, my entire life.

It took me a second or two to fully gauge what was happening. Luckily, the Hulk's sprint towards me was more of a stumbling job, and it gave me plenty of time to roll out of the way. Of course, my dumb ass rolled the direction that put all my weight on my broken rib, but the yell I made was easily drowned out by the sound of the Hulk cracking the pavement as he drove his foot into the ground. His legs, from where I was rolling away, were like damn tree trunks, and his foot was at least halfway into the ground. I sat up again, trying to get to my feet, but the pain caused me to grab my side, gasping in agony and trying to catch my breath. Every inhalation felt like someone was stabbing me, but damn it, I needed to someone get out of there. The Hulk's head turned, red eyes staring down at me. The pavement cracked some more as he pulled his foot out of the street and swiveled on his other leg, stomping down at me again. Using my hands to scrabble away, I managed to avoid the worst thing possible as the Hulk's foot jammed down between my legs, my feet almost touch the sides of his foot. He tried again, swinging his other leg now. I felt like a crab scuttling backwards, my body somehow finding the means to jam enough adrenaline in my system for me to...discount the pain, to play it off, because I sure as hell wasn't ignoring it. It was right there, slamming cymbals and playing "The Immigrant Song" over and over again as I dragged my ass across the street. I managed to get further and further away, never far enough to risk getting to my feet, as the Hulk stomped his way after me. I was already trying to figure out how to use the sidewalk to push up and maybe dive to a side when my back collided with a parking meter. Figures. All that room and I had to bang against the ONE stationary object.

Before I could ditch to the side, he was there. His foot slammed down in front of my feet as the Hulk towered over me. The green Machine got a little closer as I tried to push against the parking meter to get to my feet. I knew it wasn't gonna work, one of his massive fists pulling back to throw a punch that would, literally, knock my head off...

I don't know what made me do it. Reflex, or the last desperate act of man about to crap his pants. As his hand flew at me, my hands came up, thumbs jamming down the triggers.

Pop.

Fill it in on your "Herman's Injury Bingo" card. That pop was the sound of my shoulder dislocating of joint from the twin level four blasts I let loose. Luckily, I didn't feel the bone scrape as it popped loose, because it was underneath about seven layers of agony as the bone DID push against the bullet wound.

I can't still be conscious. I can't. I've taken enough punishment this evening to make even the Marquis de Sade go "that has to be unpleasant." But I am. My body just won't let me black out, and I think it knows that the fade to black would be the last thing I ever experienced. It really shouldn't have mattered. If Mjlonir and Ms. Marvel's blows couldn't stop the Hulk, and a sustained series of blasts to his head didn't do a damn thing, two level fours glancing off his fist shouldn't have done a damn thing.

But they did. The Hulk's fist was caught between the two blasts as they soared through the air. As they passed by, my eyes, which hadn't yet closed in anticipation of being pounded, caught the punch stopping. It wasn't knocked away or halted by my blasts, but...it petered out. Just came to a stop, hanging in mid-air. The Hulk was still staring at me, still bearing bloody teeth, but that hand wasn't coming to Buster Douglas my ass.

Confused? So was I. The Hulk wasn't. More like...annoyed. That low growl again, and then his other hand swooped in. The air rushed out of my body as the green giant squeezed my throat and lifted. The tops of his fingers alone supported the rest of me via my jaw, and from where I was dangling, his thumb might have been the size of my neck. Time I should have spent blasting him again, I instead spent trying to pull his fingers away from my throat with my good arm, to absolutely no avail.

Suddenly, he had yanked me close. Nose-to-nose, his red eyes glared at me as I choked in his grip, my legs kicking, trying to find some purchase. This close, the Hulk could have bitten my head off, or otherwise devoured me like, well, a zombie. But he didn't. Instead of becoming chow for the Jolly Green Giant, the evening took another weird turn, because hey, what's one more plot twist in the Herman Humiliation Conga?

That low growl? It was back. But it wasn't constant, throaty, or angry. It was laughing. Imagine a lion chuckling, turn the bass up, turn the speed down, and that's what I was experiencing as I was helpless in front of the Hulk. This...undead thing...found me funny. Was that everything? Was this guy just toying with me? And everyone else who had tried to stop him? It beat being eaten, but...

"HULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLK!"

Ever seen an angry god? An angry god who was streaking down from the sky, blonde hair trailing, his hammer out in front, ready to lay a holy smackdown on someone?

Yeah, well, the Hulk had. The Hulk swung back his hand, and just as Thor was about to slam into him, he smacked the God of Thunder.

With me.

In case of emergency, Herman Schultz can be used as a melee weapon.

It was like running into a brick wall as I slammed into Thor's side hard enough to send him skidding off course. The Avenger hit the ground hammer-first, the legendary weapon cracking the ground. The ensuing crater split the street, and as I watched from where I was swinging, Thor disappeared into the ground, swallowed by his own impact. The Hulk looked at the large hole in the ground, and roared in approval, maybe in victory, as he still had me dangling from his first.

Spider-Man was still down. Ms. Marvel hadn't gotten up from the truck bed. And now Thor was literally six feet under. And where the hell was Hydro-Man?

"Hey..." My voice was weak, cracking from a lack of oxygen. But I was the last one standing, so to speak. And damn it, I wasn't going to let it end without some type of defiance. I didn't have a plan, but I had...something. The Hulk's head turned to face me, slowly rotating on his neck. I heard something crack and pop as he turned. The street? Maybe rigor mortis? I didn't know, I didn't care, but what I did do was...

"...is that all you got?"

In any other situation that saw me uninjured and not facing the Hulk, that might have been a sentence of defiance. In the case of the Hulk, though, it was apparently a personal challenge.

In case of emergency, Herman Schultz may also be used as a projectile weapon.

He reared his arm back, pulling me over his shoulder, and then did his best impersonation of a javelin thrower. With one hand, the Hulk sent me hurtling through the air. This time, at least, I was horizontally flying and not vertically falling. I easily cleared the row of parked cars, gliding over the sidewalk. I had time to acknowledge that I wasn't going to smack into the side of one of the buildings before, just getting my arms up, I crashed through a first-floor window.

It was that safety stuff, pretty indestructible. But in this case, my body smashed through the thick glass and the chicken wire woven throughout. Luckily, the back wall stopped my momentum as I slammed into his forearms first. I bounced backwards and hit the floor stoMACH first. And yes, just like you'd imagine, that was the slash wounds, burns, and broken rib that told me, though shooting pain, that they were still there and wanted to play, along with my right shoulder making a grab for attention.

I groaned. That was all the noise I could make. Now, darkness was starting to creep into the edges of my vision. Sleep. It seemed like a damn good idea. Just for a few minutes, like the nap you grabbed between subway stops. You'll wake up when you get to your destination. A minute or two, that's all I...

"Mister?"

A gentle hand rocked my good shoulder. The voice was a little girl's quiet and curious. "Mister Shocker? Are you ok?"

"Emma! Get away from him!" The adult female voice was louder, but something kept shaking at my shoulder anyway.

"I think he's hurt, Mrs. Robinson." I groaned in agony again, any thought of sleeping slowly drifting away as this girl kept trying to get my attention. "Are you ok," she repeated."

"Hell no," I replied. It took me a few seconds before I rolled over onto my back. Wherever I was, it was brightly lit with fluorescent bulbs, with a white tile floor, and desks which had been shoved against the windows that faced the street. Leaning over me was a short girl, blonde hair, missing some of her teeth. She still had my arm, and now, she was trying to pull me up. "Hey, hey!" No, no, this is a little kid. "Hey," I said, gently pulling my arm away. "I'm ok."

A woman with black-hair quickly stepped over, and wrapped Emma up in her arms to pull her away. I slowly sat up, taking in my surroundings as the pair backed into a corner, where about a dozen other children, along with several adults, were well away from the windows. And me. The walls were covered with drawings in crayon, gold stars, glitter pictures...

...and on one wall, I could clearly make out a big photograph of two rows of young kids, sitting side-by-side, in a class photo lineup. And behind them, next to the teacher, was a huge pile of orange rocks, shaped like a man. Underneath, in large letters, "1ST DAY CARE SESSION OF THE DANIEL GRIMM YOUTH CENTER."

"Oh, this keeps getting better and better." Now that I was sitting up, holding my hand to my head. The bump I thought I felt forming was the least of my concerns.

"What's going on?" That was the black haired woman...Mrs. Robinson? She had the kids herded near a doorway, the adults surrounding them. "What are you doing here, Shocker," she said, her voice challenging me, a lioness protecting her cubs.

"I'm asking myself the same question." I grabbed at a nearby table, covered with art supplies and paste, to pull myself back onto my feet. "Lady, the Hulk's one of those things, and he's the one who pitched me in here. He's dead, and he's ticked off. You need to get those kids out of here before he comes in here and tries to finish the fu...the job," I stopped myself.

"There's nowhere else to go," she replied. "We're sitting here waiting to get rescued, and no one's showed up for two days."

"Wha...what?" I shook my head as I replied. "The Army's been through here. They should have picked you guys up."

"They did come through, and the officer in charge said they'd be back for us," she countered. "They helped us barricade the doors and drove off. We've been waiting every since. No one's come back."

"Damn it, you're kidding me. Well, you're in luck, lady. The Avengers are outside," I said, pointing to the window. "Thor, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man. And SHIELD's on its way. But for now, you gotta move these kids before..."

Just then, one of the kids screamed loudly, a splitting cry that pounded on my eardrum. Almost immediately, one of the adults joined in, pointing at the window. A massive green hand reached inside the window, grabbing at the surrounding stone. The wall crumbled as the fingers dug into the masonry, and the arm they were attached to flexed as the Hulk pulled himself inside.

"Out!" I pointed towards the doorway. "Get them out of here!"

She didn't need to be told. The adult in the back flung open the door leading out to the hallway, grabbing two of the kids by the wrists afterwards. By the time the wall fell away, the adults had gotten the children out of the room. Which left just me and the Hulk. Screw coming in the window, he had ripped damn near half the wall down. As brick and mortar fell into him, the Hulk stepped through the opening, ignoring the concrete block that simply bounced off his shoulder.

"Thor? Ms. Marvel? Spider-Man? ANYONE? I could use some damn backup!" Even as I called...cried...for help, I fought the urge to step towards the door and run for safety. That's the direction the kids had gone, and if the Hulk got his hands on them...

He was inside the building now, hunched over, unable to stand straight due to the low ceiling, which made him look even bigger as all that muscle mass compressed downward. His very first step cracked the floor, a spiderweb instantly appearing on the tile floor. His second step just added to the damage as one hand casually flung a desk away. Those red eyes didn't hold anything now. No anger, no annoyance, no emotion. The Hulk advanced towards me, each step breaking the tile underneath his feet. Alone. Damn it, I was alone again. I kept finding myself in these situations. No Rhino, no Boomerang, not even a Speed Demon to back me up. My luck was just about to run out.

So the question was, as the floor buckled, how was I going to go? Cowering in fear? Quietly defiant? Smashers firing? Right now, I was going to go with frozen solid.

Halfway towards me, the Hulk stopped. Bent over, his feet embedded with pieces of broken asphalt and tile, the giant simply stared at me. And I stared back, at the crimson orbs embedded in his skull. I wouldn't beg. I wouldn't call for help. Maybe I had been a laughing stock, but for now, I was Herman Schultz, the Shocker, and damn it, I hope a bone gets stuck in the Hulk's throat as he eating me.

His mouth slowly opened. No roar this time. But that moan. Low, almost like the Hulk was gargling with blood. Hungry need. He was done playing with me. I stepped backwards involuntarily, pushing against the rear wall of the classroom, as the Hulk came forward again, still moaning. Each step cracked the floor, like Rhino did when he charged down the street...

...

...in retrospect, I didn't think it through. Which was a good thing, because if I had known how much it was going to hurt, I probably would have had second thoughts, and I couldn't spare the time for any. I had only two or three steps to time it just right, and it was on the second step, just before the Hulk's massive foot set down on the floor, that I aimed my gloves right at the floor where he was going to step, holding down both triggers to fire off two level-five blasts. One shot, for all the marbles.

Level five. The "ever see a parking meter stuck in a human being" blast. The attack where "you don't have kidneys anymore. Or a sternum." I think I said, "it'll liquefy your organs like an overpressure wave from a fuel-air explosion bomb." Now, I might have been bragging slightly, but it's still my Alpha Strike, the last resort attack when I'm all out of options. It's as close as overloading my gloves as I'm comfortable risking, and it threads the hell out of that line. Needless to say, it'll drop anyone, even Spider-Man, and I'm sure it'd give pause to a guy like Thor.

So imagine what it'll do to a floor.

The tile just vanished. It immediately fell away, turning into dust as the twin vibrating waves slammed into it, followed immediately by the Hulk's foot disappearing into the basement below. Just like that, half his leg was buried in the floor, and a split second later, as the floor decided that it couldn't take his weight, the Hulk's entire lower body just suddenly jerked downwards as it gave way. His hands tried to find purchase as he fell, gripping and grabbing at the tile. As he slid into the basement, somehow, the Hulk managed to grab onto the edge of the sinkhole, digging into the floor with his fingers. It couldn't quite hold him, though, and with a loud crack, his entire body vanished. The remaining bits of floor shook as he slammed into the basement, knocking over a desk and sending some of the art supplies on a nearby table to the ground.

I really didn't see any of this, though. Because I was screaming in agony, more pain than I had ever imagined running up and down my wounded arm. The recoil had vibrated up my arm and into the bullet wound, passing over my dislocated shoulder, and finally ending in my brain, where the pain receptors were having a field day. I bent over the table, gritting my teeth, as a pounding red filled my vision. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ...deep breaths, Herman. Deep breaths. I wanted to pass out, oh did I ever. I just couldn't take anymore abuse. It was impossible. A mouse could have killed me at that moment with just one squeak. It felt like Electro was shocking me, the Vulture was slashing at me, Wolverine was stabbing me, the Punisher was shooting me, and Rhino was squeezing my shoulder between both hands, all at once. The sheer shooting agony was what kept me conscious. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to look at the hole. Limping due to the pain, I walked over, leaning on the desks to help me along. The hole opened up into the basement, alright, specifically the boiler room. Carefully, I peered over the edge, trying to see where the Hulk's body had landed.

The green form was standing up. He was on one knee, his hands pushing him from the ground. The basement floor had cratered from his landing, but the impact had done nothing more than faze him. Damn it. I didn't expect it to kill him, but he should be been, I don't know, stunned or something?

As he raised his head to stare at me, I braced myself as best I could. Gritting my teeth and closing my eyes after aiming, my shoulder flared up as two more level-five shots went in the Hulk's direction. My jaw ground against the rest of my skull as I peeled open my eyes to see the Hulk was back down on one knee, the floor beneath him now covered with cracked spiderwebs. He was back down. The level-fives had...not hurt him, but he wasn't trying to get back up. I didn't have a choice. Another set, the air exploding as the blasts shattered the floor around him. It was like a hot poker in my shoulder, but the Hulk shuddered under the attack.

"Shocker!" I didn't have to look up to know that Ms. Marvel was the one calling my name. "Shocker, are you ok?"

"In here," I yelled before setting off another blast. The cracks now reached across half the basement, and after the sound of vibrating air filled the room, the Hulk threw his head back and roared loudly once my assault hit him. "I think I got him on the ropes!"

A second later, the whoosh of air announced the blonde's arrival. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her hover for a second over the large hole in the floor, before suddenly zipping downwards. The resulting sound of impact was louder than my vibro-blast had been as Ms. Marvel's double-fisted attack slammed into the Hulk's face. But the sound of the basement floor giving way was louder. Her attack had been the final straw, and the force of our combined blows was enough to break the concrete. She hovered in mid-air as the Hulk fell through the new sinkhole, the floor around him collapsing, giving him no purchase. I could make out, through the falling debris, a latticework of metal and wood just before the Hulk broke through that, too, falling through the subway track. And the layer of pipes underneath that. And the layer of pipes underneath THAT layer. The sound of shattering wood and collapsing metal were music to my ears as the Hulk fell away from me, the sound of his cries lost in the noise of destruction.

Finally, he came to a stop. He slammed into an old, rusted pipe, probably from the turn of the century. The 20th century. The thick metal held its ground, refusing to budge even for the Hulk. Even from up above, I could hear the quick squishing sound as the pipe jammed through his skin and bone, bursting out of his chest. About six inches worth of blood smeared steel, when all was said and done, jutted from the Hulk's torso. Pipes and stone still fell as the Hulk's descent came to a halt. But he still was still groaning, his arms and legs moving in mid-air as he tried to figure out what exactly had happened to him.

Ms. Marvel didn't miss a trick. She flew down like an out-of-control freight train, leading with her foot. Passing through layers of underground New York, she slammed her boot into the chest of the Hulk, just above the pipe, and another six inches of metal burst through his torso. And still, one hand swiped at her. She easily avoided the attack, hovering just out of reach as his hand grabbed at her.

"Damn it," I yelled down to her, wincing as my chest flared. "What the hell is it going to take to kill him?"

"SHIELD's on its way," she called back. "They'll burn him, and that'll be the..." She paused in mid-sentence, sniffing the air. "Aw, damn it. I think he broke a gas main!"

My shoulders slumped as I detected just a slight hint of natural gas. "Damn it! Well, worry about that later, Ms. Marvel. We got civilians up here!"

"I know, Spidey and Thor are getting them out..." She stopped again. When she didn't start speaking again, I called after her.

"What's wrong now," I asked wearily.

"The guy doesn't know when to quit!" She stomped at him again, as the Hulk had both hands on the pipe, and was slowly trying to pull himself off of the pipe. He didn't have anything to push again, just using sheer strength to try to free himself, pulling his entire mass along the metal projected from his chest. "Damn it," she cursed again. "He just won't stay down, and with the risk of gas, I don't want to use plasmathrowers to burn him!"

You had to be kidding me. The Hulk was about as helpless as we could make him, and now using anything to incinerate him might blow up an entire city block. Personally, I was willing to make that trade, but I wouldn't be the poor guy holding down the trigger. "Just keep pounding him," I suggested. "Someone will think of something!"

"Well that better be you, Herman!" She kept kicking and stomping, trying to keep the green zombie pinned on the pole. "I can't do this forever!" She reared back with each kick, dropping down suddenly for added impact.

As I watched her, one of the pipes that had been broken during the fall shook slightly, before water began to pour out of it, slowly taking on the form of Hydro-Man, about halfway between myself and Ms. Marvel. "Wow," he exclaimed as more and more of him flowed together, "you guys are impossible to find."

"Bench! Where the hell have you been," I exclaimed.

"Trying to catch up to you!" He snaked towards me, the lower half of him still flowing from the pipe. "I ducked underground to absorb some more water, but when I popped back up, you guys were gone! And I ain't as quick as Thor or Spider-Man, so it took me a while to get here!" He wavered in front of me in his watery form, clear eyes without pupils giving me an once-over. "Damn, Herman. You look like you got put through the ringer."

"Hydro-Man! Get down here and give me a hand! We gotta keep the Hulk on this pipe!" At the sound of Ms. Marvel's yell, Hydro-Man turned and shot down the hole. His form turned into a giant fist, just passing Ms. Marvel and slamming into the Hulk's chest. The fist broke apart on impact, splashing around and below the green zombie, before reforming underneath him.

"You push, Ms. Marvel! I'll pull!" The fist split into two hands, each one flowing around the Hulk's upper arms before clamping down tight. The rest of Hydro-Man's "body" flowed after him, snaking into a pipe below the Hulk and apparently using it as a source of water. The Hulk's roar shook free some loose-hanging debris. Dust and small bits of masonry fell onto Ms. Marvel as she repeatedly kicked at the Hulk. His hands still clutched at the pipe, his only source of leverage. Slowly, he was pulling himself free, even as an Avenger and my friend were trying to keep him in place. "Hey, is that gas I smell," Bench asked as his form flowed down like a geyser in reverse.

"Yeah! Don't cause a spark or else we're gonna get flash fried," Ms. Marvel replied.

I wanted to help somehow, but it was taking everything I could do to remain standing. The strength of the Hulk was simply incredible. Without any leverage, he was freeing himself from impalement. How were we going to keep him down until SHIELD got here? Beating on him couldn't work. Burning him would blow up who knew how much of Yancy Street. Hell, I'm surprised we didn't just shoot him. At this point, I was ready to try jamming him under an industrial drill or some kind of metal press and just try crushing his head...

...

...pressure.

"Morris!" I cupped my hands and yelled down to my former teammate. "Morris! Try crushing him!"

"Huh?" His fists were now chains, constantly breaking and reforming as Hydro-Man tried to keep the Hulk down.

"Crush him! Like if he was at the bottom of the ocean!"

It took a few seconds, but I could see Morris slowly getting the idea. "Right! Right! I don't got enough water, though! I'd need Long Island Sound to get anything! Can you and Thor throw him into the ocean, Blondie?"

"We don't need to get his entire body, Hydro-Man! Can you squeeze his head? Maybe we can pop his brain like a balloon!"

"Hell," he replied, "I'll try anything at this point!" The chains broke away, reforming into a ball as the end of a long tether of water flowing from the pipe. The Hulk had managed to fight off Ms. Marvel's blows and pull himself about halfway off of the pipe he was impaled upon when Hydro-Man's body reformed beside the Hulk's head. Both watery arms lashed out, surrounding the skull of the Hulk. From the after-action report, Hydro-Man told me that he had jammed his "fingers" into the ears, nose, and eyes of the Hulk, filling the skull cavity with water before starting to squeeze.

THAT got the Hulk's attention. His massive hands immediately clamped down on the sides of his head, fingers clawing at his skull. Hydro-Man was pumping more and more water into the Hulk, filling every single crevice that he could. And it was working, because the Hulk was flailing and punching at the water globe surrounding him.

"YOU GOT HIM, MORRIS!" My rib protested at the scream, but screw it. We had finally hurt the Hulk. "Keep pouring it on!"

Hydro-Man's grunted in response. He was pushing more and more water into the Hulk's skull, compressing it from all directions. The water inside, being applied from every direction, couldn't push out any of the other openings, so the only thing it could do was force itself inward. The pressure in the deep ocean is applied by all the water above an object, or a human being, weighing down on it. You're down fifty feet, you have fifty feet worth of water pushing onto you from above. You're down five hundred feet, it's five hundred feet worth of water. Right now, all that force was being applied to the Hulk's brain, and Morris was pumping more and more into it. The effort must have been incredible, especially with the Hulk slapping and pulling at the waves of water pushing into his head. All that water, pushing on each other, pushing inward. Water was flowing quickly from the pipe Hydro-Man was using, pouring up through his body, down his arms, and into the Hulk's skull. Come on...come on...it's physics, it has to work. "You got this, Morris! You'll be the guy who took down the Hulk," I yelled as encouragement.

If the Hulk screamed, it was lost in the bubble of water surrounding his head. But Hydro-Man cried out, the sound of a man using his last effort to cross a finish line. A surge of water rippled up from the pipe, curving up his body like a shaken-up bottle of beer, before shooting down his arms and into the ear of the Hulk.

Pop.

The Hulk's arms went rigid for a second, before falling to his sides. His legs dangled in the air as he hung from the pipe, motionless. After a few seconds, the water surrounding him fell away, pouring down his body and down into the blackness below him. The remaining water flowed back into Morris' body, who's panting held a gurgling nature. "Holy...crap..." he breathed. "That was hard. His brain was like a damn diamond."

Ms. Marvel gently floated over to the still body of the Hulk. "Are you ok," she asked Hydro-Man as she studied the green giant.

"No...at the end there, the bastard tried to swallow me whole. Those things can't bite me, but floating around in the Hulk's liver ain't my idea of a good time." He waved a tendril of water at Ms. Marvel. "I'll be fine. Just make sure he's dead for good this time."

First, she bent the steel pipe at a 90 degree angle, to make it damn hard for the Hulk to escape if he somehow popped back to life, turning in to the side like it was taffy. Then, the blonde Avenger crossed her arms, hovering beside the Hulk. His limbs hung to the sides, and from his ears leaked a black fluid, blood and brain fluid dripping. "I think you did it, Hydro-Man. You squashed his brain." She carefully picked up one of the Hulk's arms, and let it drop down to its resting position. "Wow. Nice job," she praised him.

"Herman's plan," Hydro-Man responded. "I would have kept pounding on his skull otherwise...but thanks for the compliment," he said with a hint of pride in his voice.

"His eyes!" I yelled down at the pair from my perch above them. "Are his eyes still red?"

Ms. Marvel lowered herself slightly. The Hulk's eyes were wide open and sightless, staring back at her. "No, Herman. They're brown and white."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Then I think he's down for good."

And my body thought so, too. My legs went limp, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head like I had suddenly gotten very, very tired. It all caught up with me at once, the punishment I had taken over the past few hours slamming into my soul with the force of a runaway train. No pain, no agony, just an unfightable urge to pass out. Slowly, my body fell forward, and soon I was falling down...down...down...

As Ms. Marvel caught me with both arms, just before I passed out, I distinctly remember the two words that went through my head. The blonde avenger had just saved my life, and I found myself in a position to finally confirm what I had thought for all these years.

"What knockers."


	29. Meet the Old Boss

Soft and comfortable. These were the best two pillows I had ever put my head on, I thought as I stretched my neck. Sighing, I rolled onto my side, one arm sliding underneath as I fought to get more comfortable. My head sunk into the firm softness. The cover over me was thick, and probably filled with down. "Mmm...I could stay here all night," I murmured softly.

"You've slept long enough, Mr. Schultz."

Funny. I always thought she'd have a more feminine voice...

My eyes snapped open. And I found myself staring at the partition in my warehouse's bedroom.

"What the...I'm home?"

"Yes, Mr. Schultz. Please, can you sit up for me?"

I didn't recognize the voice. Maybe it was one of the survivors Rhino brought back earlier in the night? "Yeah...give me a second." I felt utterly exhausted as I stretched out my arms, waking my body up...

Where was the pain? There should have been earth-shattering pain, because hadn't I been shot in my shoulder right before dislocating it? Was I still dreaming, maybe? No, that couldn't have been the case, because it was my IKEA bed and not the Presidential Suite at the Waldorf. The only pain I was feeling was a small pinch in my right forearm.

"Please, Mr. Schultz. I need to see if we've put all your pieces back together properly." The voice was male, soothing, with an Oriental accent on the American words. Carefully, I lifted my upper body. My usual blanket had been replaced with a thick checkerboard-pattern comforter. The bed creaked slightly as I sat up. Aside from the usual weariness that comes with just waking up, my body was pain free, except for that little pinch. I gingerly put a hand to my chest. Where I expected tightly wrapped bandages, I met only smooth skin. No cuts, no scabs. Looking down caused me to blink in confusion as I took in my unwounded self. What had been a mess of burn marks and talon cuts was now a grouping of light scars, dotting and criss-crossing my torso. And my shoulder...the skin was much lighter where the bullet had entered my body, but I was able to gently roll my formerly-dislocated shoulder without the slightest of discomfort.

The little pinch in my arm stung for a second. When I laid eyes on it, I saw that an IV had been run into my left arm, dripping from a bag hanging on a metal rack.

"If you feel up for it, try to stand up, please."

I turned my entire body, looking now at the man who had been talking to me ever since I woke up. Standing beside the partition was a tall Chinese man, wearing a black suit, that I didn't recognize. He was smiling and motioning for me to get out bed. "Watch the IV, Mr. Schultz," he told as I put my hands on the mattress, and slowly pushed up. I felt my knee pop slightly, but other than that, I almost felt as right as rain. "How do you feel," he asked me.

"Pretty damn good, actually," I told him as I put my hands on my lower back. Blood started to flow and sleep left my body as I stood in my own bedroom. I wasn't even wondering who the hell this Chinese guy was who was so intent on my health. He definitely wasn't one of the guys I remember bring back to the warehouse. I focused on him, trying to job my memory as he simply smiled in return. "Do I know you," I finally asked after coming up blank.

"I don't believe we've met." His skin was worn and tough, but the nails were neatly trimmed, I noticed as I took his extended hand. "My name is Martin Li. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Schultz.

"Herman, please." It was then I noticed that I was only wearing a pair of pajama bottoms. "Can we take this IV out? I'd like to throw a shirt on."

"Certainly." He reached out again, and carefully removed the needle from my arm. "Just hold this piece of cotton," Li said as he pushed it over the small drop of blood, "for a few seconds."

"Thanks." As I held the medical gauze in place, I asked him, "you a doctor?"

"Not exactly," Li smoothly replied. "I'm more of a...homeopathic specialist. James Sanders called for me a few days ago and...bartered for my services. I've been taking care of you for the duration."

"A few days ago?" That got my attention. I pulled the cotton away. One red spot stained the white fabric. "How long was I out for?"

"It's been three days since Ms. Marvel brought you here, Herman."

"...three days?" I looked down and touched the scar on my chest with one finger. "This all healed up in three days?"

Li's response was a sly smile. "I am very skilled at my craft, Herman. I know you have a lot of questions, but please, let's get some food in you first. We'll be waiting in your kitchen when you're ready."

"We? Kinda vague...who's we?" But Li was already gone, stepping behind the partition and out of my sight. Puzzling over my current, wound-free situation, I started to grab a t-shirt from the dresser when I caught a whiff of myself. The stench really could be described as "eu du zombie," because man did I reek.

Even if it was converted and jury-rigged from an old warehouse restroom, the nice, hot shower did freaking' wonders for me, and brushing got rid of that 'just waking up' film that always collects on your teeth, be it morning or evening. The guy looking back at me as I rubbed the week's worth of beard stubble still looked like me, save for the whole bunch of new scars. The longer I stared at my reflection, though, the more I started to really study it. The wall of stuff behind looked a bit off, and as I debated if it was worth shaving, I realized I was looking at...it's my face, yeah, but there were some areas I was seeing in a new light. Literally, the light was shining on me in a weird way. It took me a few seconds, craning my neck to see what was what, before I shrugged it off.

By the time I finished shaving, my stomach was making waves, rumbling loud enough for me to hear over the running water. I changed into a pair of athletic shorts and a gray t-shirt after running a comb through my hair. Li's suggestion to get some good in me was a damn good idea. A ham sandwich was on my mind as I stepped out from behind the partition into the main part of the warehouse. "Excuse me, Flint," I told the Sandman as I brushed passed him.

"No problem, Herman," he told me as he took a sip from the bottle of beer. I headed towards the kit...

...

...

...slowly, I turned around. "Flint?"

The broad form of Flint Marko, much better known as the Sandman, had been leaning against the wall near the partition that made up the "wall" of my "bedroom." He saluted me with the bottle of Budweiser. "We were wondering when the hell you were going to wake up. You just won me fifty bucks. I had 3:30 pm in the pool."

"I..." After a second of confusion, I did the only thing I could do, stepping forward and clapping the silicon-based villain on the shoulder. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, Flint, but what the hell are you doing here?"

"What do you think? Hiding out from the damn zombies," he responded with a gritty chuckle. "When Sanders showed up and told me we were moving all the survivors we could find to your warehouse, I rounded up everyone in my place and brought them over here."

That took me a couple more seconds to process. "Sanders? Speed Demon? Bringing everyone here? I am awake, right? Because, no offense Flint, if I am dreaming, I'm pretty pissed at myself, because you should be Ms. Marvel. And Moonstone."

Another small laugh as Flint put his hand on my shoulder, and gently turned me around. "Take a look, Herman," Sandman said, pointing towards the rest of the warehouse. "See what happens when you sleep in?"

My warehouse was packed with people. Ever been to an underground club or an illegal rave? Take away the music, and that's what my hideout had become. With his arm around me now, Sandman walked me forward, laughing at the stunned look on my face. "Turns out your place can hold a lot of people, Herman."

On the couch in front of me, Speed Demon was holding a video game controller. On one side, his practically life-partner Blizzard was sipping on a cold ice tea. The other side, a young boy, thirteen at the oldest, was slamming buttons on his controller. "Come on, man! You're cheating!"

"I am not! You just suck at this game, kid," James shot back with a smirk on his face.

"No I don't! I'm ranked on Xbox Live!"

"Kid, so am I. Who do you think N33d4Sp33d is?"

"Oh, God, I just imagined how you spelled that," Blizzard moaned next to Speed Demon, holding his head in mock dismay. "Any English major left alive is cringing."

Behind the bickering trio, the Ringer, wearing his green and orange costume, was leaning over a large pot that was simmering on three of my stove's burners. "Mmmm...that smells delicious..."

"Shoo!"

Thwack!

"Ow!" The Ringer pulled his hand back as Anne shook a wooden spoon at him.

"Not done yet," she responded in her Eastern European accent. "You wait until it's ready!"

Near where the Ringer shook his hand, I could make out a steel tentacle waving in the air, and there was only one guy I knew with limbs like that. Indeed, as I craned my neck, there was Otto Octavius, the good doctor. And he was pulling an IV out of the arm of a young black haired woman. "Thank you, my dear," he said. "We were in dire need of that blood type," he said as he wiped her arm down.

Past that? Anaconda was holding a kid in the air, surrounded by other little kids, and a wary looking adult who kept an eye on the Serpent Society member.

And all the way at the other side of the warehouse? Hang on kids, because this is where I was wondering if Li had given me some really strong painkillers, as two guys I never, ever, ever thought I'd see in my life were interacting. Clad in green and violet, Molecule Man was closing the hole in the loading dock door he had made with a wave of his hand, after letting a large golden wheel just roll inside.

"Big Wheel," I said as Jackson Wheele stepped out of his vehicle, turning to help a young man out after him. "That's it. I'm nuts. I've finally snapped and am sitting in Bellevue in a straitjacket."

"Then seeing the Hypno Hustler earlier this morning would have blown your mind." Sandman moved me forward a little bit more. Everywhere I looked in the warehouse, there was a villainous colleague of mine, mixing freely with civilians. Civilians who normally would be running from guys like them were now giving them nothing worse than a wary eye. The air was filled with chatter, normal people talking with criminals, mad scientists, and murderers without apparent fear. And it was all happening in my house. My home.

"How...how did this all happen?"

"I'll let the big guy explain." He pulled his hand from my shoulder before cupping his fingers around his mouth. The fingers turned from skin to sand, extending slightly into a small megaphone. "HEY, EVERYONE! HERMAN'S AWAKE!"

Silence. Just the complete and utter absence of sound after Sandman's echo drifted away. Everyone, from where I was standing, turned to look at me. Every pair of eyes on me for a few seconds of silence. I wanted to take a step backwards, and duck back into my bedroom. I was the center of attention, from everyone...

I don't know where the clapping and cheering started, but within in instant, damn near everyone was putting their hands together for Herman Schultz. Cue dropping of my jaw. The civilians and my colleagues...oh, God, there was the damn Armadillo, putting his claws together for me...and the Needler, the old guy standing next to a really hot redhead who was nodding her approval as our eyes met...and speaking of hot women, Skein was totally shooting me a "come hither" look...and Doctor Octopus, standing next to Hydro-Man, simply dipped his head towards me as his tentacles snapped their approval.

Ok, you want sappy? You want me getting overwhelmed? You want me blown away by this outpouring of support? Well, damn right, this made me feel incredible. Confused, but incredible. I had no idea what these people were doing jammed in my formerly-secret hideout, but apparently, this was a place of safety, a neutral zone of peace since my furniture still looked intact and no one was fighting with anyone else. Me. This was all for me...

Fred was right. I wanted the applause. I wanted the acclaim. And I wanted it for doing things my way, the correct way, the RIGHT way. I had turned this warehouse, a few nights back, into my own personal rescue station, and to this day, I will insist I did it because it was the right and moral thing to do. I sure as hell didn't mean to turn this place into a full-fledged rescue station, but apparently, it had, for some reason, become a beacon and a place to come. I didn't even ponder the logistics of it all, the feeding, the medicine, none of that. The applause may have caused me to blush, but for the most part, I was just stunned by the reaction.

"Move it! Move it! Damn it, get OUT of my way!"

I knew what was coming the second I heard that gravelly voice. I managed to turn and brace myself just as two massive arms wrapped around me and lifted me up off the ground.

"About TIME your ass woke up," Aleksei bellowed as he squeezed me tight. I heard some laughter...good natured...from the crowd. "Jesus, Herman, that's the last time you do any damn thing without me! You could have been killed!"

"Damn it, Aleksei, put me down! Put me down!" I swatted at him half-heartedly. "You look like a big baby!"

"Hell with that," Aleksei said as he put me back down on the ground. "I don't care," he growled, his hands holding my shoulders, audible even over the applause. "Right now, you tell me you're never going out again by yourself, and I'm including climbing up onto the roof!"

"You're embarrassing the lad, mate." One arm clapped around my shoulder, and the other shoved a cold glass of water into my hands. "Li says no alcohol for you while you're still full of antibiotics, so this is the best we got," Fred told me as he drank from his own can of beer. "Drink up."

The water felt great going down. The applause tapered off as I enjoyed the cool liquid. "Oh, that's good," I breathed. "Thanks, Fred."

"No problem, mate. So..." He lowered his voice, speaking in hush tones. "...you gonna make a speech here? You've been the man of the hour for the past three days. People kept trying to sneak in to see you, but Li insisted you get a lot of rest. We had to get Aleksei and Flint to play bouncer!"

"Tell me you didn't turn away any hot blondes, Aleksei..." The big guy, out of his suit, just shrugged at me. "Oh, come on, man...alright, alright," I said as his face got a bit crestfallen, "you were just doing your job, Aleksei. It's all good. Thanks for watching out for me."

I finished my water, looking at the crowd out of the corner of my eye. They were talking a bit among themselves, but the attention was still on me. It was that spotlight pressure, where you're compelled to say something because everyone expects you to. Which might explain Spider-Man...

I stepped away from Rhino and Boomerang, putting my glass down on the table before raising my hands. "Um...hey!" The murmuring quieted down again, all eyes back on me as I raised my hands. "Hey, everyone." Nice opening, Herman. "Um...well, it's great to see everyone here. I don't know where everyone came from, but I just hope someone remembered to charge a cover."

Dumb, dumb, dumb joke. Polite laughter, though. Some of the unease went away. "Alright, I have to be honest. I have no freaking' clue what's going on here...or why you guys are in my house. It's like someone threw a party and no one told me about it." Some more laughter now, along with a few calls of encouragement from some of my colleagues. "So, if you guys don't mind, I'm gonna have...lunch? Or an early dinner. Whatever. And these two guys behind me are going to explain to me what the hell's going on."

It wasn't the best closing in the history of speeches. But then again, I never was much of a public speaker. "Alright, you two," I said to Fred and Aleksei, "let's get something to eat, and then you can tell me all about how my warehouse became the damn Hilton..."

X

"Start at the beginning," I said to Aleksei as I dipped the hunk of bread into the steaming bowl of chicken soup. "How the hell did I get back here?"

The big guy wiped his chin with a napkin as I dug into my first meal in days. "Ms. Marvel carried you. She showed up and got you into your bed. You were in really bad shape, Herman. We tried to clean you up as best we could, but...what the hell happened? Who shot you?"

"I'll fill you guys in after we're done talking," I replied. "Right now, it doesn't matter..."

"Actually, mate, I am curious to hear how you took down the Hulk." That was Fred, sipping on a fresh can of beer. "Think both of us are, actually."

"I didn't do anything but get smacked around by him. It was all Hydro-Man. But," I said, waving my hand, "that's not important." Save for the blood red eyes, but one confusing matter at a time. "They brought me back here? Why the heck didn't they fly me to a hospital or something?"

"They wanted to, mate. She dialed Aleksei here up from your mask's phone and told us where she was taking you. But Norman Osborn must have overheard it. Her and Morris were heading towards a Med-evac unit, but Osborn cut in said the unit was at capacity and didn't have resources to waste on, and I'm quoting from memory, 'a known supervillain who won't follow government directive.'"

Obsorn again.

"Stroke of luck there though. I think Blondie was really letting Obsorn have it when James cut in, and told her to switch to another channel. They kept jumping comm channels until Osborn couldn't catch up, and Speed Demon told her to bring you here. By the time they had shown up, James had gotten in touch with this Mr. Li fella. Apparently, James knew about the guy, and made a deal with him. Couple of minutes after we got you out of your suit and started to clean you up, James calls from outside. It's him, Li, and a whole bunch of survivors from Chinatown way. From what James said, the deal was that Li's group could hole up here with us, and in return, Li would play nursemaid and get you back to health. Guess the guy's a meta like us, because he dragged you back from Death's Door, Herman."

"Either that or that ancient Chinese secret stuff really works," Aleksei chimed in.

"In any case, he sets you up in the back there and brings everyone in through the storm drain, and they were nice enough to bring all their supplies with them in a U-Haul. As he's doing that, Ms. Marvel gets a call from Osborn. And again, quoting from memory, her orders are to 'arrest James Sanders and Herman Schultz for obstruction of justice.' Well, Ms. Marvel just flat out tells him that 'Sanders got away and took Schultz with him,' before cutting him off and letting us know she'd be back. Well, she's flying away, and James just makes himself at home. With me so far?"

"Yeah, Fred." The chicken soup was delicious. I tried to maintain decorum as I slurped it up. "So Ms. Marvel told Osborn to take a flying leap?"

"Not in so many words, but she sure wasn't listening to him. He pulled a switch on everyone that night, and a lot of people aren't happy about it." Fred motioned for a piece of my bread, and tore a chunk off after I offered it to him. "Osborn really pushed the 'everyone to Central Park' thing ever since this whole mess started, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, the big central rescue station thing."

"Well, the night you decided to go out and become a human pincushion, Osborn goes on TV and tells everyone if you're not in an official rescue station by that point, you're a liability and are cut off."

I almost spit out the soup at that point. "Wait, WHAT?"

Fred shrugged. "That's what he said, that everyone had ample time to reach the safe zone, and that if you weren't there by now, they weren't going to risk coming to get you."

"But...I mean...that lady in the youth center. She said some soldiers had stopped by and said they were coming back to get her, but never did."

"The black-haired teacher lady? Yeah, Bench brought her and her kids in a bit after Ms. Marvel left," Aleksei added. "She mentioned that thing about the soldiers."

"Anyway," Fred said, "so Osborn pretty much told anyone not under his guns that he wasn't gonna look out for them. You can imagine the damn uproar that caused online. Osborn tried to shut down the damn Internet, it got so damn bad. Anyway, so James decides, since he doesn't have a job working for the feds anymore, he's just gonna put up feet here. All well and good. I mean, it's James. But then Donald..."

Blizzard, a reminder to those not in the know, and I know a lot of people don't know who he is.

"...calls and says he's got a bunch of nurses from an overrun med-evac station, and why the hell wasn't James at their meeting spot? So, half an hour later, Blizzard's sitting here with a gaggle of nurses, and I'm in the middle of offering them a brew when Hydro-Man shows up, and he's got all the kids and teachers from the day center. So, in the course of about two hours, we about doubled the number of bad guys, almost tripled the amount of civilians, and then Aleksei has this gem of an idea..."

That was my cue to give my friend a look of my own. "Really?"

"Don't look so surprised, Herman," he growled good-naturedly.

"Aleksei, you're the guy who though we should stock up on a whole bunch of supplies and you're also the guy who's in one piece while I should look like a jigsaw puzzle." Shooting him a smile, I asked, "So what was this great idea of yours?"

It took him a few seconds to put his thoughts together. "This is a big warehouse. You got a lot of space even with all your stuff here. Even packing in Li bunch, Donald's bunch, and Morris' bunch, there's still plenty of room. We still have a lot of supplies, and everyone who came in tended to bring along some of their own water and stuff. So I just thought about what Abner said earlier about all our friends hiding out and playing good guys like we were, and just...well, I just said out loud."

One large hand swept over the stunning visual panorama that was my warehouse hideout. "Why don't we just make this place our Central Park?"

I blinked. And blinked again. And chewed on my lip for second. "I think I'm following you here Aleksei, but I'm not picking up the trail."

"Look," he said, folding his hands together. The table creaked as he leaned forward on his elbows to make his point. "Whenever I'm fighting a bunch of guys, it's a lot easier for me to take them out if they're all clumped together. Just charge right in and knock 'em around. If they're all spread out, it's harder for me to get them. I still get them in the end, but it takes longer." He nodded firmly to finish his thought.

"Yeah...still not quite following you, big guy. By that logic, you're making it easier for Osborn to wipe us out in one swoop." I turned to Fred. "You with me on this one?"

Fred put his hands up, pushing back from the table just slightly. "This is Aleksei's idea, Herman. Just hear him out. Don't pull me into this."

Aleksei responded with a shake of his head. "I know what you mean, Herman, but Osborn's not going to try anything. Look around you." He waved his hand again, and as I followed, I immediately picked up what he meant. "Doctor Octopus, Molecule Man. Those two alone, I wouldn't want to try messing with. And that's not counting all of us schlubs who actually works for a living," he joked softly. "Look around, Herman. No one's scared. No one's fearful. Nervous, yeah. But we bad guys worked up a lot of goodwill the past few days. I just thought if we packed everyone in here, no one's going to try to mess with us. We're the good guys now..."

"Some of us, mate."

"...Fred excluded, and yeah, maybe guys like Venom or the Punisher. But the rest of us, we did something good here. And it's because of you, Herman." Aleksei pointed a finger across the table at me. "You started all this. You saw how everyone reacted when you showed up. You're a damn rock star right now. From what Ms. Marvel and a couple other heroes we've talked to have said, Osborn's playing his cards right and keeping people safe, but he's checking the pot instead of betting big and trying to save more people. And that's ticking a lot of heroes off. And here you are, risking your butt to save civilians..."

"So basically...we rounded up all the demons to watch the sheep," I mused, "but the angels are on our side."

Fred smirked at my reference. "I don't think Angel's been in the city," was Aleksei's reply, "but for now, most of the bad guys are the good guys, and the real good guys are helping us out." He paused for a second, and shook his head. "Sorry, Herman. I got off track there, rambling."

"Don't sweat it, Aleksei. Seriously, you've heard me talk. So, you rounded everyone up?"

"Pretty much. We put the call out that anyone who could get here safely to come in and bring whatever supplies they could. And after a while, people just started showing up. I think Joystick and Polestar showed up first, but after that..."

"I see the results. But what about the zombies? Aren't they still out on the streets? All those people running around getting here, that's gotta be an all-you-can-eat buffet to those things?"

Aleksei confused me by smiling in response. "Herman, have you seen who we have here? As long as everyone was smart, there wasn't any problems. Most of the ghouls are up near Central Park, anyway. You were right about that. All those people in one place?"

"Yeah...I just hope we don't end up the same way." I finished the bowl of rich soup that Anne had brewed up for me before bringing up my next question. "So, the heroes? They're completely fine with this, and not trying to arrest everyone?"

"It's like Aleksei said, Herman," Fred chimed in. "Look at all this firepower. Hell, Molecule Man alone is enough to make Norman Osborn reconsider his options. Granted, Osborn's ranting up a storm, but it's...it's a controlled rant. He's angry, not insane. But the heroes...well, gee. They just can't find the warehouse to arrest everyone. They're not storming the place because they're afraid of us, or that we have hostages. They're just leaving us alone for a bit." He finished his beer. "Respect from the spandex crowd," he said as Fred snapped open a fresh bottle, popping the cap with the edge of the table. "What a concept."

"Yeah, but they've also been bringing up stuff we need. Sneaking us extra food, bringing medicine, hell, they even brought a bunch of tennis balls so the Ringer could juggle and entertain everyone. It's like..." Aleksei scratched at his chin for a second. "...it's like the West Berlin Blockade I read about when I was a kid."

"Christ. Aleksei's pulling out the history analogies. Now I know I'm dreaming." That got a laugh from the big guy, and as he lightly punched my shoulder, I didn't feel any pain from the gunshot wound. "Alright. So, pretty much, we consolidated everyone's resources into one place. Part of me..." I tapped my fingers on the table. It felt a bit off putting to NOT be in costume. Heck, only Aleksei and I were out of costume. Even Fred was still wearing his Boomerang colors. "...part of me thinks we're flicking our noses at Osborn, and the last thing anyone wants to do is piss off a possible psychopath. But...hell, it never was about us, was it? It was about the civilians. And, on that note..." I reached over and took the beer out of Fred's hand, ignoring the small cry of protest. "...this one's to you, Aleksei. Your plan, and it was a good one. Cheers." I raised the bottle, and saluted my friend. "Your health, Aleksei."

If the soup tasted good, the beer tasted even better. I downed half the bottle in one long swallow. "Damn, that was what I needed," I said, smirking at Fred as I slid the bottle back over to him. "Thanks, mate."

Pause.

"Oh, crap. I'm on anti-biotics, aren't I?"

X

"No, Herman," Mr. Li said, "the anti-biotics I gave you won't react with such a small amount of alcohol." His hand squeezing my shoulder was oddly reassuring, and I felt much better as he patted me firmly. "Why don't you go make the rounds? I'm sure a lot of people here want to shake your hand."

That wasn't a bad idea. "Alright. Hey, thanks for..."

Li waved his hand. "Don't worry about it, Herman. I'm sure you'll find a way to pay me back someday."

X

"Can't you just...I don't know, Owen...wave a hand and make these things disappear? I thought your powers worked on inorganic matter?"

He was probably the most powerful guy in the room, a guy who could make energy and matter appear from nowhere, someone who could rip open a hyperspace portal without a thought. Hell, he even shattered Captain America's shield once.

So when a guy like Owen Reece, the freaking' Molecule Man, shakes his head sadly, it doesn't really do wonders for long-term confidence.

"I've tried, Herman. For whatever reason, something out there is animating dead tissue to the point where it could pass as organic. It's a mockery of life."

X

"Hey, man..."

Jackson Wheele looked a bit sheepish as we stood next to his vehicle. "...the whole thing with me and Spider-Man, and you and the bank robbery...it wasn't anything personal..."

"Hey, it was Vil-Anon's, what, ninth step? Water under the bridge, Jackson." Although...do you know LONG I had been harassed because I had been beaten up and arrested because of freaking' Big Wheel?

No, Herman. Detente, forgiveness...if you could have let Electro go after he tried to kill you, being mad at a guy who had tried to go legitimate seemed like overkill. "Seriously, don't sweat it." I studied the large, round vehicle that was Jackson's namesake. "I gotta ask, though, did you have a problem with hair and guts getting stuck between your spokes?"

X

"Alright, kids, throw me another one!"

Normally, I would have been quietly paranoid about kids running around my warehouse. Not only is there a bunch of very delicate equipment on my workbench, but even after moving all the crates and disarming all the traps to give everyone easy access to the storm drain entrance/exit, I still didn't want the young ones wandering into the far corners of the warehouse, where I still had a few traps. Just in case. Hey, I didn't survive as a villain for as long as I did without a helping of paranoia.

Luckily, my fears were allayed by the actions of several colleagues. The remnants of the Wrecking Crew had set themselves up on the edge of the gathering of people. Anyone wandering near them would get the stinkeye from Bulldozer, who, along with Thunderball, had staked out a couple kegs of beer and were currently working themselves into a pleasant state of buzzedness. I don't know if there were giving the stinkeye because they wanted to be alone or because they were afraid that someone was going to snag their beer, but they kept everyone away from them, and that included the kids.

Who were instead being distracted by a very unlikely source.

A blonde-haired kid, no more than six, giggled as she gently arced a bronze ring towards the Ringer, who easily snatched it out of the air and added it to the four he was already juggling, much to the delight of the gathered children.

X

"I mean," she purred, "I never knew you had it in you."

"I...well, I didn't either..."

Black Mamba smiled at me, white teeth dazzling against her olive complexion. "It's impressive what you're capable of, Herman. I mean, normally I would have passed you off as just a nice guy. You should be proud of yourself. You, Aleksei, and Fred. But this was really all you, Herman, from what Boomerang told me. He talked you up something fierce."

She leaned in closer, her hand squeezing my upper arm, as I beamed at her words. Here was one of the hottest women on the face of the planet, complimenting me while she was sober. Already I was debating how to make a move when she whispered into my ear.

"I have to ask you...is Fred seeing anyone?"

X

"Um...thanks," I said, staring up into the featureless face of the Awesome Android after reading the message on the CPU display in his chest, "but I don't I need a hug, dude. She's not the first girl to turn me down."

X

I felt a hard tap on my shoulder. Turning away from the Prowler, I looked up at Aleksei. "Yo."

"There's a guy up on the roof, who wants to talk to you." Aleksei motioned with his head towards the ceiling. "Says it's important. I think you should go talk to him."

He was trying to be sly and mysterious, and failing miserably. The Prowler chuckled just a little bit when I gave Aleksei a friendly smile. "Alright. I'll head on up. We'll talk later, Hobie," I said, nodding goodbye to the Prowler. Aleksei fell in step beside me as we walked through the crowd towards the stairs. "What's up, Aleksei?"

"Abner's up on the roof with someone," Aleksei responded. A few people in the crowd were acknowledging us, raising their glasses or cup in salute or patting me on the shoulder as we passed them. "They landed a few minutes ago. Something big's going down, Herman."

"Really. Who's with him? One of us, or one of them?"

"One of them," Aleksei responded as we reached the steps. "One of the big them's, Herman. That's why I'm thinking this is big."

"Huh. Well, if you're saying it's big, big guy." I had met Thor and Ms. Marvel. Who the heck was bigger than them? Reed Richards? I started up the stairs, and the metal creaked as Aleksei walked behind me. "Aleksei, you don't have to..."

"The last time you went anywhere alone, you got shot," he responded with a note of finality. Hell, at this point, I was lucky Aleksei didn't follow me into the bathroom when I had to take a leak. But he was right.

The sun was setting over past the Jersey shoreline as Rhino and I walked out onto the roof. The debris from burning buildings and incinerated bodies made the sunset a little more brilliant than usual, painting the roof with an orange glow, casting long shadows behind the two of us. Leaning against one of the nearby heating outtake ducts, the silver-and-black form of MACH-IV looked up as we approached. "Hey, Herman. Nice to see you up and about. Spider-Man said you took a hell of a pounding."

I was going to snap off a smart reply, something so incredibly witty that anyone reading this story would pee their pants faster than a senior citizen with a broken catheter. But as soon as I saw the guy who was standing next to Abner, well, that funny and very insulting to Abner's mother line went right out of my head.

"Oh my God," I spat out instead. "You're him."

"Not exactly," the form replied. He stepped forward, a red gloved hand outstretched. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Herman. You did good work this past week."

I knew this wasn't the guy. He had been shot on the courthouse steps and died bleeding out in a nearby hospital. His body had been buried in Arlington Cemetery, full military colors and honor guard. The day of his funeral, I don't think a single crime was committed in New York City, just out of pure respect. The guy in front of Aleksei and I ain't him, not by a long shot. He picked up the mantle and ran with it, and from what I've heard, isn't doing a bad job.

When Captain America, who ranks up there with the freaking Pope in terms of respectability, puts his hand out, you shake it.

"Wow. Thanks!" Ok, Herman, don't sound like a damn fan boy. "I mean...thanks. But I had help."

"I'm well aware of Aleksei's contributions over the past few days." Was Aleksei beaming? Yeah, the big guy was. "You look well, Herman. I heard from Spider-Man that you got beaten up pretty badly, though."

It was like listening to my Dad. That question-that-wasn't-a-question, made specifically to yank an answer out of you. For the first time in a while, I'm glad my old man and lady had died a few years back. The thought of them wandering around somewhere looking to eat people...well, my folks didn't exactly approve of my life choices, but still, they're your folks. Heck, my old man might have finally been proud of me...

Alright, alright, you didn't come here to hear about my lack-of-major-daddy issues.

"I had a really good doctor," I replied. "I'm feeling pretty good, all things considered."

"That's good to hear, Herman," Captain America responded sincerely. "I apologize for being to the point, but we're very short on time. According to Aleksei, you have about three hundred people downstairs. How quickly can you have everyone downstairs ready to move out?"

Blink blink blink.

"Move out? Like, have them ready to leave?"

"Yes."

I looked up at Aleksei for a second, quickly crunching some numbers in my head. "Um...well, are we talking just the people, or the supplies?"

"Just the people."

"Shi...um...sheesh," I quickly corrected myself, "four hours? Yeah, about four hours."

"That quickly?" Captain America now stole a glance to the side, taking in MACH-IV as he thought.

"Well, yeah. Everyone's about to have dinner, so they'll leave well fed. All the major injuries have been set or taken care of. No bites," I quickly added, "just sprains and cuts and stuff like that. It's just a matter of getting organized and making sure everyone's ready to go."

He nodded firmly at my statement. "Alright, then. Abner, call Iron Man and start getting everything prepped. You think this roof can handle a Quinjet?"

"Easily," Abner replied. "I've seen helicopters land on this roof." After another nod from Captain America, Abner stepped away from us. "HQ, MACH-IV," I heard him say. "We're a good to go, ETA four hours, let's call it 2200 hours..."

"You're going to evacuate us?" That was Aleksei, who towered over the soldier, scratching his chin as he talked. "You're gonna fly everyone off of the roof?"

"Exactly. At midnight tonight, we're going to evacuate Central Park, and that includes everyone you two are keeping safe downstairs. Manhattan's being written off by the government." He must have seen the look on our faces. "I know it's a shock to just abandon the biggest city in the country. But even after everything the armed forces and the Initiative have done, there's just too many zombies and not enough people to stop them all without risking civilian lives. Central Park could hold out, but there's no reason to keep the civilians there anymore. There's really no one else who can make it to the Park left on the island. So, it's time to get them, and us, out of here. And that includes everyone in this warehouse."

It made good sense. Which meant, I had to ask. "Osborn's call?"

"No, Herman, this one's SHIELD's call. Osborn wants to make a stand in Central Park and just whittle the dead down one at a time, and at the same time, write off everyone else outside the barricades. But the rest of the country needs our help, and there are just too many zombies still left in New York. It's better to evacuate the civilians now before anything happens. And there's no way we were going to leave this many civilians and all the villains who came over to help out in the cold."

I found myself nodding along. "Alright. So, what, you're flying everyone out on Quinjets?"

"Out of your warehouse, yes. At midnight, Doctor Strange is going to open a portal in Central Park to a safe zone out on Long Island. A couple of the Initiative teams have cleared most of the island. We're going to move everyone out there before we spread out to the rest the country."

I was never a big fan of magic. Give me Newton's Four Laws any day of the week. Aleksei spoke up now. "How's the rest of the country holding up?"

"Not too well, Aleksei. There's too many zombies and not enough emergency personnel, including superheroes, to go around. Boston was next on our list, but thwey went silent earlier this evening. Philadelphia's still broadcasting, but they're getting stretched thin. We got lucky in New York because of you and Herman. Because of your actions, the villains came on board. People we normally would waste time fighting are assisting us instead. We lost New York City, but we saved a lot of the population. That stands for something, and you two had a lot to do with that."

A thought was running through my head, one that had the potential to throw a huge monkey wrench into the words. And something else I wanted to bring up as well. "I can have everyone, civilians and bad guys, ready to go in four hours, Captain. But there's two problems I can see popping up. One, there's a lot of bad guys down there. And a lot of them have outstanding warrants. What's to stop Osborn or even SHIELD from just arresting everyone?"

"Me." Personally, that's all Captain American needed to say to put me at ease. "This might be Osborn's grand show, but Nick Fury has the authority to suspend those warrants, and as long as everyone keeps playing along and helping out, no one's going to get arrested. If someone tries something or attempts to take advantage, we'll take them down. But as long as they play straight, we'll play straight. You have my word."

I nodded firmly. "Great. That'll allay a lot of fears. Just make sure you bring that in writing four hours from now." I'm glad my voice didn't crack as I talked tough to Captain America.

He studied me for a second. "You don't trust me, Herman?"

"I trust you. I just don't trust Norman Osborn. Or Nick Fury, for that matter."

"Fair enough. You got a fax Machine downstairs? I'll fax it over and make sure you get a copy of the original when the first Quinjet comes. Now, what's the second concern?"

"We got a lot of supplies down there. Medicine, food, and apparently a damn good blood supply. I really don't feel comfortable leaving it behind."

"Yeah," Aleksei chimed in. "Especially since we risked our asses to get some of it."

"I understand, but we're not going to have the carrying capacity. Just getting a couple of Quinjet runs to spare is difficult enough." He shook his head. "Unless you got a couple of flyers down there, we can't bring it along."

I couldn't help but smile. "We have some flyers, Captain, but we got someone better. If we get the stuff to Central Park, can it go through the portal?"

"I don't see why not. Alright, Herman, we're cutting it a bit close on time. I'll get that promise from Colonel Fury to your as soon as I can. Deal?" He put out his hand again, and this time, I gripped it firmly as I responded.

"Deal. We'll be ready at ten o'clock. Women and children first. How many people to a group?"

"Five flights, sixty people a pop. Avengers on each of them. And I promise, no tricks. You've played straight the past few nights, and I'll make sure everyone else does the same."

"Alright." This was Abner, stepping back into earshot of the rest of us. "Five Quinjets, one right after another. First one lands at 2200." He motioned to me with a metal hand. "Try to have the first group on the roof, Herman. We'll land the jets...there," he said, pointing near the spot where, a few nights past, we had shared a few beers.

"Can do," I confirmed. "Four hours. And you guys better be here."

"I promise, Herman, we will." Captain America nodded to me one more time, before MACH-IV grabbed him by the waist. Abner's boot rockets ignited, and soon, the pair soared over Lower Manhattan back towards Central Park, leaving me and Aleksei alone on the roof.

"We're getting off of the island, Herman."

"Master of the obvious, big guy," I responded. Off of Manhattan. Away from the living dead. Away from personal responsibility, which had grown from a handful of people to nearly three hundred while I was unconscious.

So why was I filled with a sense of dread and unease?

Oh, yeah. Because Norman Osborn was still out there. Along with whoever this guy was who was trying to kill me.

"Ok, Aleksei. We gotta get everyone moving. Come on, we're not going to waste a single second..."

X

For the most part, it was going pretty damn smooth. It was those magic words that I said as soon as I stepped down off of the stairs and called out to the entire warehouse.

"The Avengers are coming."

The civilians cheered. And my friends and colleagues didn't get too upset at the thought of people they normally would have clashed with riding in like the cavalry. Sure, there were a few loud complaints, from both civilians ("It's about damn time!") and villains ("I got a warrant out!"). It took Aleksei and me a few minutes to calm everyone down, and by that time, the promised fax from Captain American, signed by Nick Fury himself, had arrived. Like I had hoped, it quelled most of the fears from all involved. After that, it was a matter of getting people organized. Women and children first, but when a few male parents pointed out in no uncertain terms that they weren't going to let their kids out of their sight, we revamped the plan a little bit. At this, there were very few protests. Part of me wants to think that the dead rising from the graves to attack the living somehow brought humanity together, uniting instead of diving in the darkest hours of our species. Part of me knows that some of the acceptance was because, well, they were surrounded by people who committed criminal acts on a daily basis and might not have had a problem smacking someone who got out of line.

Women, children, and the female villains had point, making up the first group and nearly the entirety of the second. From my side of the good-evil line, no one complained or bitched. You expected someone to try to slide or weasel on into one of the first groups, but no one tried. And maybe it's some new found optimism on my side to think it was because of altruism and not because Anaconda, she of the massive steel arms, was leading the first group.

Of course, there's one in every crowd.

"You said women and children first! That guy's standing with the second group!"

"That kid doesn't have a mother, and so her father's going with her. So consider it changed to 'women, children, and single male fathers whose kids are here first.'"

"Mr. Cooper, please, just calm down..."

"No, it's not fair, damn it. I've been here longer than most everyone else who's going before me, and I'm not going to sit around here and wait because of a bunch of yo-yo's!"

Standing near the back of the second group, where we had been dividing everyone into the groups of fifty, the old Herman would have just blasted this guy and been done with it. One good level-one, and I bet he'd try to sue me as he laid on the ground bleeding from his nose and ears. But this was the new and improved Herman Schultz. And sometimes, it's not about force, but the proper application of force.

"How about this, Mr. Cooper? Why don't we take this over to the complaint department?" The balding man looked confused as I leaned to one side, singling out the closest costumed guy. "Hey, Thunderball! This guy's gotta a complaint!"

The green-and-yellow clad villain slowly turned away from where he stood, his trademark ball-and-chain wrapped around his shoulder. "Really," he spoke in a deep baritone. "Who's got a complaint, Herman?"

"This guy!" I pointed with one finger towards a suddenly apprehensive looking Cooper. "He doesn't think it's fair that single dads get to go before he does!"

"Really."

*CLUNK*

"No, no, it's ok," Cooper said as the metal ball bounced off the concrete floor, leaving a crack in its wake. "I can wait. I can wait..." Slowly, without taking his eyes off of Thunderball, Cooper stepped away, backing towards the fifth and final group of people. A few people chuckled as he retreated, including myself.

"Thanks, Eliot," I said to Thunderball.

"No problem," he replied. "Some people just can't wait their turn."

"I know. Hey, can you watch things here for a second? I'm gonna go check the roof, make sure it's fine up there."

"No problem," Thunderball repeated. Behind me, Mysterio and Black Mamba were taking the lead in separating everyone still in the warehouse into their groups. Mysterio had literally just shown up, walking out of my bathroom about two hours ago. The only guy I know who would make a Broadway-level production level of washing his hands. As much as the showman's bombastic style grated on my nerves, if you needed someone to wave their hands and play airline host in getting everyone to stand in line, Mysterio was about the best choice you could make. Having the sultry Black Mamba standing beside him helping separate the crowd didn't hurt, either.

The wind had picked up a bit as I stepped out onto the roof, but I had changed back into my original costume. My backup was still soaking wet, fried, ripped, and would one day probably go in the 'GREAT ASS KICKINGS IN MODERN HISTORY' Museum. But the Mad Thinker had been nice enough to fix my suit during the three days I had been unconscious, and my vibro-smashers had been dried out and running with full power.

And there was Aleksei, also back in his armor. I could easily make him out, towering over the crowd of fifty women and children. There weren't any ghouls up here, but he was keeping a lookout, arms crossed, watching over the flock of civilians When he saw me, Aleksei, his face grim, nodded in my direction, and shot me a thumbs up with a massive hand. I nodded in response before heading over towards the other two men standing nearby.

Fred tied the last knot on the final pallet, tugging the cable to test its strength. "There, mate. Everything should be packed tight. Nothing's going to slide around." Indeed, the cable bit into the plastic wrap that had been tied around the stack of stuff atop the pallet. The cable barely budged as Fred pulled on it. "It's damn heavy though, Owen. They all are." Four more pallets were spread out along the roof, a few feet away from where Abner had designated the landing zone for the Quinjets. Each one was packed with the food and supplies that we had gathered and organized over the past week, with the fifth pallets a collection of ice chests holding the blood and plasma Doctor Octopus had collected. "They ain't gonna let it on one of their fancy planes."

Molecule Man smiled as he also tested the cable. "The problem would come if we had to move all this mass over a long distance, Herman. Remove the distance, and it's child's play." One snap of his fingers, and next to Owen, a dark gray portal was shimmering slightly. "Hyperspace. Where one can tell the laws of physics to get bent."

"Well, look who developed a sense of humor." Seeing the hole in time and space was a bit unnerving. I couldn't even look at it directly, instead focusing on the three scars that ran across the bridge of Owen Reece's nose. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Herman, it's Central Park. On a normal day, it's nothing worse than a pleasant walk."

"Not that, Owen…I mean, being the very first one of us there. If Osborn decides to pull something…"

"Ever seen a gun turn into a banana, Herman? I have." Molecule Man twisted his hand, and the portal seemed to spin in place like a coin skittering across the floor. "Don't worry. Someone has to be the point man, right?"

"I'd tell you to keep a level head, Owen, but it's you. I know you'll be cool and calm." I had to turn away from him as he started to manipulate the hyperspace portal. Each motion of his hand was like tearing a hole in realty, as far as I was concerned. "Hey, Fred," I said, "you got a second?"

"Sure, Herman." Boomerang followed me away from where Molecule Man was screwing with space and time. He came up beside me as I came to a stop. "What's on your mind?"

"Got a question for you. You still got a full charge in your rocket boots?"

"…yeah," he replied after a few seconds. "I haven't done a damn bit of flying in a week. You know that, Herman. " Fred shook his head, looking almost disappointed. "Come on. Just ask whatever you're going to bloody ask me. Don't beat around the bush. You know me too well for that."

"Alright. I want you to go with the first bunch of civilians." He started to protest, but I put up both hands to stop him. "Not on the plane. That might put it over the weight limit. If you fly alongside it, be its wingman…"

"Herman," he quickly interrupted me. "No. Absolutely not."

"Come on, man…I know you're stubborn, but we need someone there on the ground. Owen's good and all, but you…you've been here since the beginning. You're one of us to the civilians, you know. It's like an air of legitimacy," I explained. "If they see you there on the ground when they off-load…"

Again, Fred cut me off. "Herman, I'm not going to Central Park."

"Uh…ok. What?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "You heard me. I ain't going up there to rub shoulders with the capes. Most of them don't place on my list of friends, and I'm sure I rank the same to them. Not going to put myself anywhere near where they can arrest me and toss me back in the Vault once someone figures out how to put the dead back into the ground."

"Oh, come on, man. You saw the paper, Fred," I countered. "Hell, Nick Fury himself signed it…"

"I'm gonna trust a guy who thought starting a secret war with Doctor Doom was a great strategic move? Forget that, Herman. I kept my head down so my neck wasn't on the line. No way in hell I'm going to risk all that now just because Nick Fury says he's not going to arrest me. Soon as you and Rhino are on that last bird out of here, I'm blowing this pop stand and heading for warmer climates. Like Aruba or St. Kitts."

I shouldn't have been surprised in the slightest. This was the guy who left me holding the bag during a safecracking. But…I was a bit peeved. "So that's it. You're just gonna abandon Aleksei and I and go save your own ass?"

"Hey, you two want to go be safe and sound with the Avengers and Norman Osborn, Herman. Far as I'm concerned, they can keep bailing you out. You put your neck on the line this past week, and apparently that's enough to wash away all your sins and make you an honorary sidekick. Ain't my bag, Herman, and you know that. Hell, you of all people should know that. You're just gonna up and take the word of Captain America and Nick Fury that everything's squared away and that it's all rainbows out of everyone's arse. There's an angle, you're missing, and you're too damn caught up in playing hero and being starstruck to see it."

My next words caught in my throat as Fred's words hit a bit close to home. "I…but…ok, ok, maybe you're right. The old me would have been a bit paranoid about all of this. But I shook the man's hand, Fred. And Abner was right there. You're gonna tell me you're not going to trust Abner? And when I was out in the field with…"

"In the field? Christ, you're even talking like them now! Herman, I know how this is going to go. Sooner or later, either everyone's going to hold hands, sing songs, and join up with the Initiative, or they're all gonna turn on you and your ass will end up right back in the slammer. I'm not going back to jail, and maybe a guy like Mysterio or Doc Ock can change his stripes and go straight. The Shocker? Legit? That's a hell of a story. I'd say…two-thirds plausible. Boomerang? Legit? Ain't ever gonna be written, Herman."

I should have argued some more. But just like Fred knew me, I knew Fred. Stubborn as the day is long and always winning to put the knife exactly where it needs to go. Yeah, he was never, ever, going to be on the side of the angels. But…the man was my friend. So, I just threw the friend card.

"You owe me, Fred." He scoffed at me, but I kept talking. "For the past week, I let you stay in my warehouse, asking you just to keep an eye on things. You never had to step outside and risk your neck. And you got to eat my food. And…you drank my beer. A lot of my beer. You owe me for that one."

Boomerang just gave me a stony look. That last a few seconds, before the corner of his lip twitched. "Damn it," he groused, trying hard not to crack a smile, "that's low, Herman. That's damn low."

"Hey, you're the one with a drinking problem, not me."

"Yeah, the problem being I'm not bloody well drunk ENOUGH." He sighed, shaking his head in dismay at me. "Damn it, Herman…why don't you go? I'm sure somewhere there with the first group'll swap out to fit St. Schultz onboard."

"Two reasons. One, if I go, Rhino goes, and, no offense, you don't command the civilian respect we do to help keep everyone in line. And two, if I go first, it's like the owner of the Titanic clawing his way onto the first lifeboat. It's just…tacky. And, well…isn't St. Schultz supposed to set a good example," I teased.

He didn't laugh, but he did, that small full body 'harrumph.' "If I do this, I want you to know that the second you and Aleksei walk out of the last plane, I'm gonna walk up, shake your hand, endure a bear hug from Aleksei, and take off. So if you got anything sappy you want to say, suggest you say it to me now, Herman, because I ain't gonna wait around for long goodbyes."

"Sappy? Me? How about I just say thanks for doing this? I know rubbing elbows with the good guys ain't your style."

"I keep telling people that! You believe they wanted to put me on an Initiative team? No joke, they were putting a team together out in Las Vegas, and I got asked if I wanted to join up and clear my record."

"You're kidding me," I said in disbelief. "They asked you of all people?"

"I know, mate! I ended up saying no by attaching a note to one of my boomerangs and putting it right through Alicia Hill's window. She'd got ice in her veins, but I think I rattled her slightly. One of her eyelashes batted."

After the laughter faded, I said quietly, "thanks, Fred. Seriously. I know this…"

"Sod it, Herman. You're right. I owe you for keeping my ass safe and letting me get pissed on that water you Yanks call beer. Just be aware, mate, this wipes the slate clean. We're even, far as I'm concerned."

"You stick around to shake my hand," I responded, "and take a hug from Aleksei, and I'll consider us square, Fred."

"They're coming, gentlemen." That was Molecule Man, who was pointing north. Fred and I turned as, having passed low over the Hudson River, a snub-nosed silver jet was banking through the air, on final approach to the rooftop. The crowd of civilians, with Rhino at their side, watched, small murmurs of hope rising among them, as one of the world famous Quinjet slowed down. Blue-and-yellow thrusters ignited on the bottom of the plane as it went into VTOL mode, smoothly cutting through the air towards my warehouse.

"You sure the roof will hold that thing, Herman," Fred quietly asked me.

"It'll hold."

Pause.

"Um, Owen…"

After a small wave of his hand, Molecule Man nodded. "If it wouldn't before, it will now."

"Alright! Everyone, just like we talked, single file line! Don't rush, don't crowd, and keep track of your kids!" Rhino's booming voice was audible over the whine of the engines. "Everyone's going to get on board, so don't push!"

The Quinjet hovered over the roof now, slowly descending towards the ground. From the flat underbelly, landing struts slowly disengaged, one under the nose and two towards the engines. The pilot didn't jam the stick or let gravity to the work, carefully nursing the plane onto my warehouse. I held my breath as the struts touched down, taking the full weight of the Quinjet and passing it onto the roof. After a few seconds of not crashing through the roof and on top of my kitchen, the engines powered down, small jets of blue flame the only sign of standby mode.

"Guess I gotta go say hi," I told Fred.

"You do that, mate," he said to my back as I left him. The landing ramp was lowering as I walked towards it. I was a bit concerned about my total lack of concern. Let's be honest, with my luck over the past week, there was going to be a full-blow SHIELD team waiting with plasmathrowers, and my saying 'hello' would be misconstrued as 'I have come to destroy you and all you hold dear!'

I can safely report that it wasn't a SHIELD team that jackbooted it down the ramp, but something much, much better. It was the long-legged form of Ms. Marvel that strode towards me, her blonde hair whipping about slightly in the jet wash. My pace quickened just a little bit, and I met her at the bottom of the ramp. "Ms. Marvel," I said, putting my hand out for her to take. Up close, I could see her form slouched slightly, her shoulders lower than normal. Her hair was tangled and stringy, and one side of her face still sported a nasty bruise. Her firm grip, though and a bright, but tired, smile let me know this wasn't a woman, or a hero, anywhere close to being down for the count.

"Herman," she replied as she shook my hand. "I'm glad to see you up and about. You were in bad shape last time I saw you."

"I had a damn good doctor. And I got you to thank, for getting me back here to get looked at."

"It was the least I could do, after your help putting down the Hulk."

"Next time, cash would be nice," I joked. Christ, what a BAD joke. "What ever happened to the Hulk's corpse, anyway?"

"SHIELD eventually showed up. Thor lifted the body to the street and they burned it. Took an hour." She looked over my shoulder, at the crowd of people who were eagerly staring at her and at the waiting Quinjet. "I don't mean to cut this short, Herman, but we're on a tight schedule here. We have to get these people moving."

"Got it. Come on." I waited for her to walk beside me, and then the two of us headed to where Aleksei was standing. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Fred smirking at me as I was walking a little straighter, my spine stiffer, next to a woman I had fantasized about for a long time. A very long time. But no time for love, Dr. Jones. Maybe for lust, but even then…

The civilians were anxious. They shifted from foot to foot, some of the women holding babies on their shoulders or clutching the hands of their children. Freedom was just a few feet away, beyond an Avenger and a reforming supervillain. Maybe two, since Rhino was leading the proverbial charge. "Is everything ready, Ms. Marvel?"

"Yes, Rhino. Is this the first group?"

"Yeah," he grunted. "Women and children. All civvies. The female baddies are going with the second group, along with a couple of single dads. Everyone else is packed into the last two."

"Alright. Ok, everyone, listen up!" It wasn't Rhino's deep voice, but the call of Ms. Marvel did carry a long way. "I need everyone to walk to the Quinjet! We've got enough room for everyone here, so there is no reason to push or crowd! We're going to be loading one row at a time, that's ten people to a row! Just follow the instructions once you get on board!"

"You heard her! Ten at a time!" Rhino lifted a finger, and quickly counted off the first ten people. After a second, a confused look appeared on his face, and he moved his finger again, mouthing the numbers as Ms. Marvel and I watched. "Um…Ms. Marvel," he asked sheepishly, "are you counting babies as separate?"

"Yes, we are. Don't worry, though. T'Challa made sure we could use the seats as baby seats in case of an emergency. I just never thought we'd have to use them because of a zombie apocalypse."

"Ok." After another round of counting, Rhino motioned with his arm towards the plane. "Alright, you guys are first," he said in a soft voice…soft for him, anyway. "Just follow the stewardess and it'll be ok. Go on." The first group of ten moved quickly, heading towards the awaiting plane. "Next ten," he said, counting off the remaining group, "come on up here."

"You put the Rhino in charge of counting and getting people to move. That's an odd choice." Ms. Marvel watched as the next group moved towards the plane as Rhino moved on to continue splitting everyone up.

"The big guy's got people skills." As we were speaking, Rhino was quietly speaking to a shivering woman, shaking with nervousness as Aleksei tried to sooth her. "He can be really soft spoken when he wants to be. Granted, it's rare. Still, he's better with people than I could ever be. Definitely better than Fred."

"It's your show, Herman, not mine."

"Hey, I'm just getting them on the plane. You're the one who's gotta get them back. And speaking of which…Boomerang's going to fly alongside, if that's cool. He wants out of here badly enough. And Molecule Man's gonna take a trip there with our stuff," I said, motioning to where Owen was moving some of the pallets into place by the black hole. "He'll meet you guys there."

"Alright," she said with a nod. "What about you?"

"Last plane out for me. Everyone else goes first."

"How altruistic of you."

"What can I say? If Osborn tries something, all of my friends will be there waiting to back me up."

"Osborn won't try anything."

I smirked under my mask. "Never, ever hurts to have a backup plan."

She responded with a weary smile, just touching the ends of her mouth. "You would know. We should be back in 20 minutes."

"I'll be here with bells on," I told her as she turned. The last group was now wandering up the ramp way. She brought up the rear, and I watched with rapt attention as Ms. Marvel walked up the ramp, even as it was already sliding shut behind her. "Alright, Owen, Fred, you guys ready to head out?"

"Owen's already gone, mate." Fred walked up beside me, clapping me on the shoulder. "And I'm right behind him. Remember, you walk off that last plane and shake my hand. Got it?"

Squeezing his shoulder in response, I told him, "you just better be there waiting for me, Fred." Aleksei came up beside me as the Quinjet lifted off, taking off vertically from my roof, turning in place to head north even as it rose into the air. Fred nodded to the two of us, and then, with a thought, the rockets in his boots ignited. He quickly rose into the air, coming up to hover beside the jet's cockpit. After a few seconds, with him setting the pace, the two took off, flying through the New York night. As they passed a nearby skyscraper, the lights started to cut out, powering down in sequence window by window, floor by floor.

"I'll get the next group ready, Aleksei," I said as the final floor, overlooking the city from such great heights, went dark.

X

I looked over at Wonder Man, one eyebrow raised. "No. Do not tell me that. Tell me you did not just tell me that."

"Sorry, but we have a problem, Herman." He tapped the monitor at the top of the ramp way. "He makes us too heavy. We've seventeen pounds under as it, and that's cutting it real close."

"Well…can't we dump some fuel or something?"

"What fuel? We're fusion powered."

I looked down the ramp. Aleksei was standing on the bottom, looking at me as the red alarms spun silently along the edges of the Quinjet. "I'm too heavy," he said forlornly.

"No, don't say that. Look, if we're over our limit, what happens?"

"Simple. We don't take off. And if we do take off, we probably don't hover. And if we can hover, we don't fly. And if we do fly, we don't land."

"That's a lot of damn don'ts," I shot back. "Damn it, there's gotta be some weight we can dump off! Come on, man, this is a damn Quinjet!"

"Yeah…but this iteration has a lot more armor on it. T'Challa got tired of people complaining they got destroyed too easily."

I knew there wasn't. I had made a mistake. I had back loaded the bigger guys into the last group. Doctor Octopus. Thunderball and Bulldozer. Big Wheel. Damn it. Damn it. DAMN IT! It was an engineering trap, and I had fallen face-first into it!

"Herman," Aleksei said softly. "It's cool. I can just meet you guys up there. Hell, it's not that far of a run."

"No way! No way! Damn it, you said you could get everyone off, and Aleksei's everyone," I yelled into the face of the Avenger.

"Calm down, man," he responded coolly. "Look, we can send a helicopter back for him, ok?" He turned and yelled down the ramp. "Rhino! We'll radio ahead and get a helicopter sent back for you! I'm sorry, but you'd just weight us down too much!"

I was about to argue a lot more. Violently and passionately, if need. Instead, Aleksei stepped backwards, off the ramp, waving a hand at us. "Alright! Just get everyone out of here!"

No arguments, no complaints, no begging, no pleading. Just Aleksei trusting an Avenger, one of the standup guys, that he wasn't going to be abandoned on a TriBeCa rooftop. A week ago, he wouldn't have done that.

Then again, a week ago, Herman Schultz wouldn't have been standing on a Quinjet with a whole bunch of civilians and a couple of Avengers.

I walked down the ramp without a moment's hesitation. "You better make sure that helicopter shows up, Wonder Man, or else you're gonna have a bunch of angry bad guys wondering where the hell we are," I called over my shoulder.

"I promise, Herman!"

"Herman, what…" Rhino started. The ramp way was already raising as soon as I stepped off to address the confusion on Aleksei's face.

"The last time I went anywhere without you, I got shot. Someone has to keep me out of trouble." The ramp snapped shut as I added, "we're a team. You don't go, I don't go. Period."

"Herman…"

"I swear to God, Aleksei," I told him as the Quinjet with the last of the survivors lifted off into the night, "if you get sappy, I will kick you in the balls. I don't know how, but I will."

"…you know, for two guys who are best friends, we both seem to hate having the other say 'thank you.'" The big guy craned his neck as we both watched the Quinjet zoom towards Midtown, disrupting a plume of smoke in its wake. "They're gonna come back for us, Herman." It wasn't a question.

"I'd bet on it," was my response. "Well...looks like we're stuck here for a couple of minutes. Don't suppose you got a deck of cards, do you?"

"They were packed in my stuff."

"Damn. The rest of the beer was with my stuff." I crossed my arms, and looked out at Lower Manhattan. The city blocks were a patchwork of light and dark, burning buildings and dark structures. The brightest lights at the moment were coming from the site of the new World Trade Center. Someone had left all the working lights up, bright white a sharp contrast to the black-and-dull-orange of the south half of the island.

"Feels weird, Aleksei. I lived my whole life here in New York. And now I feel like I'm running away with my tail between my legs." I turned to look at my friend. "I mean, this is the center of the world. Everything happens here. Hell, Galactus, when he shows up, wants a slice of the Big Apple. It's like...it's like we're just giving up."

"Hell, Herman, this city's a graveyard now." Rhino swept his arm over the skyline of the city, from the burning buildings of the Bowery up to the few skyscrapers still twinkling in Midtown. "We're the last people still alive down in this part of New York. I'd bet on it. We're standing on a corpse. There ain't anything left to gain."

"That's...an awfully pragmatic attitude. "

"No, I'm just being honest." He put his hands on his hips, sighing as he took in what could be his last moments in his adopted city. "There's a time to cut and run, Herman. You told me that. Well, if this ain't that time, then you'll have to explain to me why not?"

"Can't a guy feel a bit nostalgic?" Aleksei was right. Hell, he's been more right than I have this past week. But...it's like leaving home and knowing you're never going to come back. I'm never gonna get cheap tickets to Yankees' games anymore. I won't be the only one rooting for the Islanders. Coney Island hot dogs? Forget it. Hell, no more Bar With No Name.

Ok, that twinge of angst is starting to set in. Screw that.

"I can't believe how this all played out, Aleksei. Dead rising from their graves. Norman Osborn trying to go on a massive power trip and pulling it off. Heroes and villains, working together." I smirked at the big guy, my friendliest sarcastic smile. "And your big revelation."

One of Rhino's eyebrows raised as he looked down at me. "What are you talking about, Herman? I didn't say..." He paused for a second, and then his eyes widened. "Oh, that! Come on, man, don't bring that up!"

"I don't know why you're so embarrassed about it! Hell, if I were you, I'd be bragging to everybody I knew! Banging She-Hulk? I mean, hell, you got street cred, everyone would believe you! 'Dear Penthouse, I, Herman Schultz, the Shocker, 12345 New York Way, New York, New York, phone number 555-555-5555, email address , am writing you because I couldn't believe what happened to me today here at a small Southern college in the Pacific Northwest."

"Herman..." Even the slight blush on his face contrasted sharply with his gray suit. "...it...it just got REALLY weird. She shows up, starts drinking with me, and hey, I don't think anything about it, because she's gotten drunk with Blizzard before. We drink, the bar closes, we go to another bar and we keep drinking, that bar closes, we go get breakfast at another bar, and next thing you know, well, we're breaking her bed."

"Aleksei, for you, breaking the bed isn't weird, it's normal."

"That's not the weird part, Aleksei. So it all goes, well, we have lunch, she tells me she'll call me, and I'm walking on cloud nine...and a few days later, I run into the Juggernaut during a job. We go out for a few beers, and he asks me what I'm so happy about. I tell him, and Cain just starts laughing his ass off." Rhino sighed loudly. "He patted me on the shoulder and said 'Aleksei, that wasn't her. Well, it was her, but it ain't OUR her.'"

Aleksei turned to face me, shaking his head. "Alternate dimension. She was from an alternate dimension. I banged her double. And Cain just buys me a beer and tells me he knows this because, a week earlier, he had done the exact same thing."

I swear to this day, I didn't mean for it to come out like it did. "Oh...oh, God. Oh, God, Aleksei. You hit the Juggernaut's sloppy seconds."

"Aw, man! Now you know why I didn't want to say anything!" Aleksei slumped against a nearby air conditioning unit, causing the metal to creak. "I mean, we all pick on each other, but you guys always seem to pick on me the most. The last thing I wanted was to give you and Fred something else to poke at me about."

He just sounded so crushed. Any smile I had on my face or fun in my heart instantly deflated. "Hey, whoa, whoa. Dude, I would have made fun, but I wouldn't have picked on you about it if it bugged you that much. I mean...it's her. Hell, that's closer to her than I ever got, and I paid for a green-skinned hooker that one time."

"Yeah, but you paid her to be the green girl from 'Star Trek.'"

"Hey. Aleksei...we all make fun of each other. You're right. But I do it because you're my friend, ok?" I walked over, and put my hand on the big guy's shoulder. "Seriously. You have a great sense of humor, you're fun to be around when you're not pissed off, you're a walking tank, you've never screwed me over on a job...you got me a damn birthday cake, for God's sake. And you didn't steal it, you actually had it baked for me! You got a kind heart and a good soul."

He brushed my hand away. "Aw, Herman, I know you don't want to be mean. It's just a sore spot, alright? It made me feel really dumb."

"Honestly, Aleksei, you may not be Reed Richards, but you're not an idiot. You had plenty of good ideas this past week. Hell, you were the one who got everyone here in the warehouse, and I never would have thought of that. And it got everyone rescued. It's getting US rescued. So the next time someone calls you dumb, I'm gonna punch them. Twice."

The warm smile I got in return from my best friend let me know everything was alright. "Thanks, Herman. Just...no more jokes about her and me, alright?"

"Alright, alright."

Pause.

"One joke, man, just ONE joke." Aleksei took a resigned breath as I spoke. "Well, I guess we found on that there's one more thing that'll stop the Juggernaut. A pubic female bone."

I thought it was brilliant. Aleksei just raised an eyebrow. "Herman, she WAS a she, she didn't have an ere...oh. OH." He cracked a smile. "That's just wrong."

"Are you kidding me? I think it's brilliant. So we know how what can bring the mighty Juggernaut to a screeching halt. Mjlonir, and her radiated vagoo."

That did it. Rhino threw back his head and let out a loud chuckle. "Nice, Herman. Now I gotta worry if I'm gonna get radiation poisoning."

That made me laugh. "Alright, alright...that was the only joke I'm gonna make. Promise. And I won't breathe a word of it to anyone else."

"I know you won't." He smiled as he gently clapped me on the back. "I just hope the real one hasn't heard about it. That'll be really weird..." Before I could say anything, his head suddenly jerked up. "I think I seen some lights. The chopper's almost here, Herman."

My friend's sight was astute. Coming from the north, the blinking lights of a helicopter heralded its arrival. "Come on, let's go show em where to land," I said to Aleksei. We headed out to where the Quinjets had landed, a wide patch of rooftop that had held up under the strain of the massive Avengers' jets. Aleksei put his hands up, waving them to grab the pilot's attention. He had to had seen us, though, as the helicopter came straight in. The rotor blades were whisper quiet, hardly audible even from a block away.

I stepped back, and Aleksei did as well, giving them plenty of room to land. With almost perfect grace, the pilot set the helicopter down. Almost immediately, the door slid open, and two men in full-body armor jumped out. As I laid eyes on them, I found myself tensing slightly. Full armor, assault rifles and grenade launchers slung across their chests, and dark helmets that covered their entire faces. It was probably just reflex. They looked a lot like the boys from the NYPD SWAT team, or even Code Blue, that I would run in to from time to time.

The guards took up posts on either side of the door, and behind them, a figure wearing dark orange stepped out. As soon as I saw him, I immediately relaxed. "Pete," I called out in surprise. "They sent you to come get me?"

"They figured you could use a friendly face!" The Trapster, who I had last seen passed out at a table in the Bar With No Name, strode towards Aleksei and me, one of the armored figures walking with him. "Glad to see you're in one piece, Herman," he said as he put his hand out towards me.

"I can say the same fo..."

As I took his hand, I felt the needle prick the palm of my hand. The tip had slid easily through the fabric thanks to the firm grip of the Trapster. For a second, my hand flashed warm, like I was holding it over a large flame. Then it spread throughout my entire body with one beat of my heart. Still gripping my hand, the Trapster watched as I sank to one knee, the inside of my body engulfed in a four-alarm blaze.

"Herman," Aleksei asked, puzzlement in his voice. "What's wron..."  
I managed to turn my head as the fire line hit my neck. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see the armored figured raising his grenade launcher. I tried to choke out a warning, but my mouth was frozen in searing flames.

*WHUMP*

Aleksei froze for a moment, puzzled. He glanced down to see the black circle attached to his armor, just above where his heart would be. A single blue light blinked in the middle of the circle, catching my eye for a moment. Aleksei raised a hand, going to flick the device off of him, when suddenly, the device spun, and sunk into his armor.

The roar of pain that Aleksei let out, I had never heard before, and I had never heard again. The blue light started blinking faster and faster before Aleksei turned his torso from my sight. His hands were clenched, fingers digging into the plating of his gloves, and his head was throw back, either in extreme agony or intense rage. One foot stepped forward, and the other. Rhino faced his attacker, and let loose a primal scream as he lowered his horn...

*FWUMP*

The back of Aleksei's armor dented outwards. A large bubble appeared on the plating, reaching from his upper back and across his shoulders. The big guy stopped in his tracks. The armored figure didn't move as Aleksei, slowly, tumbled forward. He fell to one knee, a hand going to the opening that had been carved into the front of his arm. His mouth opened, as he tried to say something, anything, but instead of words, blood poured from between his teeth, dripping down his pale chin onto the gravelly surface of the roof.

I could see his life leaving his body. His shoulders slumped, his final breath exhaling as he slowly tipped forward. He landed in a heap on the roof top, his arms curled up on his chest. From the hole the device had made, blood trickled out, a thick red liquid with chunks of bone and internal organ mixed in.

"Alek..." I couldn't even get his name out. My best friend died mere feet from my paralyzed body. My nerves were scorched, every synapse and fiber in my body in flames. It was all I could do to look up at the Trapster, who still gripped my hand tightly. He stared down at me, his face hard, eyes narrow. "Wh...why," I choked out.

"You tried to kill me, Herman. Did you think I've never try to return the favor?"

"Ok!" The armored figure pointed at the one still standing by the helicopter. "You grab Schultz and get him on board! I want dustoff before Systevich reanimates!" After receiving his orders, the figure double-timed it to where I was in the Trapster's grip. Once he arrived, the Trapster let go of my hand. Before I could collapse to the ground, he and the guy had my arms. Together, they dragged me to the waiting chopper. I couldn't even turn my head to see Rhino's body as they pulled me past him. Once at the helicopter, they threw me inside, leaving me to bounce on the floor of the passenger bay.

The guy who had shot Aleksei was the last one on board. He slid the door shut as the Trapster grabbed me and threw me into one of the seats. Without a word, he buckled me in, pulling the straps tight around my body. I could feel the helicopter lifting from the roof, my head lolling towards the floor. I was breathing, but beyond that, my entire body was paralyzed. He tied me in tight, pointing my gauntlets towards myself before yanking the cord tight. "Alright, he's in!"

"Excellent." The murder of Rhino sat down across from me. "Could you hold his head, Petruski. I want him to see me as I talk to him," he said, his voice muffled by the mask.

"If he drools on me, I ain't cleaning it up." One hand pulled my mask back, revealing my face to everyone. "Want me to disable his comms too?"

"Please. And in the future, for what I'm paying you, if I ask you to clean anything up, you'll do it."

"Um...yeah. Ok, sir." The other uniformed guy just sat down next to his partner, staring at me through his visor. I could feel Pete's hands working on my mask, which meant I still had feeling in my body. That was kind of a good sign.

Then, of course, the universe, which I had mistakenly thought I had gotten on terms with, threw me the biggest "F U" curveball it could have in that situation. The figure across from me reached up, and removed his helmet.

"Hello, Herman," Norman Osborn said. "It's so nice to chat with you again."


	30. Same as the New Boss

"For the record, Herman, I'm doing this because, well, it's both business AND it's personal." Osborn leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. "You've been a thorn in my side all week. From a professional standpoint, you made me change my plans time and time again. From a personal standpoint, having to make so many adaptations in such a short period of really infuriated me."

Norman Osborn. Head of the Thunderbolts. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and from what I've gathered, the head government guy calling the shots. Murderer. That goes without saying, but let me say it again anyway. Murderer. The slicked back hair, the piercing stare, and...just under his skin. It's there. The insanity, the thing that made him try to ruin Spider-Man's life. I've seen it before. And as the Trapster holds my chin so I'm locking eyes with him, I can see it now, even if therapy and drugs are keeping it in check.

And for the record? Yes, in person, his hair really DOES look that stupid.

"Now, this is where I'm supposed to tell you how you've ruined my plans to take over the world and be rid of that damnable Spider-Man. That's how the game works, right, Herman? Petruski, please make him nod his acknowledgement." My head moved up and down as the Trapster led me by the chin. "Well, I am sorry to disappoint you and everyone else who thought everything I did was some big grand plan, like I had some sort of list I was going down. What I was doing, Herman, was trying to end this crisis."

The helicopter banked to its right, heading across the island, away from Central Park. "You see, Herman, when the first reports of the dead coming back to life crossed my desk, a lot of my fellow government employees called them 'preposterous beyond belief.' They wanted to focus on the 'why' of the epidemic, Herman. But the 'why' wasn't important. The dead were coming back to life and attacking the living. Solar radiation, voodoo mysticism, organisms from space...why they were doing it didn't matter. The important question, the one only I was asking...who was behind it? Or rather...who profits?"

He reached out, and with a well-manicured finger, tapped me on the forehead. "You never thought about that, did you? All you were concerned about was playing a hero and figuring out who was trying to kill you. You never were a big picture guy, Herman. You could see the edges, but never took in the long view."

A response would have been nice, but my vocal cords were burning with a cold fire.

"So here I am, trying to figure out who was behind this. He was the key, Herman. There aren't enough bullets in the world to kill every potential undead on Earth, and there was no way I would risk...my high-end super powered assets when it appears that a single zombie could rip Thor's throat out, his status as a God be damned. So, instead of trying to dam a raging river, I was going to dry up the source. I had my plan in motion the moment Nick Fury shot the Wrecker on national television. And it was working, Herman. It was working. Everyone was following along. The government was in lockstep behind me. The superheroes were toeing the line. Even that damn wall-crawler was following my orders."

It was a subtle shift. Just a single crease of the brow. And if I could, I would have probably tensed up and leaned slightly away from Osborn. "And you came along. You, Herman, provided an option to my plan to move everyone. The heroes were helping to move everyone into the central areas of the city, but suddenly, the criminals and miscreants decide to lend a hand, and kill zombies...while staying put. Sure, some of them came to me and worked under my direction, but for the most part, you, and Octavius, and Beck, all decided to make stands and embarrass me in front of the entire nation. I don't like being embarrassed, Herman."

By that point, we may have been over water. I couldn't tell. We had flown long enough that, by now, we should have been landing, right? "And the heroes looked at you, Herman. A two-bit thug with delusions of adequacy, who seemingly woke up one morning and decided to just go out and help save the world. And the heroes looked at me. A self-made billionaire who's paid his debt to society and is doing his best to serve his country. And they picked you, Herman. Instead of me? They picked...you."

My lips moved, but all that came out was gibberish. My head still hung heavy, and Pete had to switch hands to keep me from breaking eye contact with Osborn. Thanks a lot, Pete.

"So I improvised. I allowed the villains to work alongside the heroes. And that just gave the heroes carte blanche to defy me. I know they could have gone into your warehouse at any time, or pulled Octavius from his ivory tower at ESU, or gone into the sewers where the Mole Man...the MOLE MAN...was hiding civilians who had been trapped on a subway. The heroes were giving the Mole Man more respect by letting him live and let live than they were giving me for trying to end this crisis."

That should have been an exclamation point on his last sentence, but Osborn dropped into a low hiss at he spoke the final word. "And whoever sent the Vulture to kill you botched that job horribly, didn't he? So I had to make do. I had to pull resources back. If I was going to find out who was behind this, I couldn't waste time with my assets running around the city picking up strays. So, I cut you all off. If you weren't in the Park by now, after all that time and effort spent by the Avengers, by the Initiative, by SHIELD, then you were written off. I prepped, I planned, and I was ready to just let you all wither on the vine by force of attrition. And then, you band together."

Osborn leaned forward now. His eyes were narrow, but his voice was even and smooth. "The very thing I wanted you to do, and you do it when I no longer require it. Again, Herman, another thumb to my eye. First, you defy me. Then, you imitate me. Then, the Avengers, who spent forever arguing against my proposals, invite you to come into my fortress, to share my hospitality? No. No, Herman. That was the last straw, the slap across the face."

"Nnnn...nnnn...o..."

"Luckily, I improvised. I'll take your influx of refugees, and of supervillians. You can never have enough pawns, Schultz. When the final reveal comes, when the grand player steps out, in the end of things, you'll have been nothing more than an inspirational speed bump. I am sorry I had to kill Systevich. He would have made a perfect asset. But killing you was something he would never stand for. Unlike Petruski. He was easily bought."

Trapster had an evil gleam in his eye, as he turned my face to look at him. "You think I would just let you get away with trying to kill me? I never forgot, and as long as you were alive, Herman, I never, ever forgave."

"Yes. Spare the melodramatics, please. We're running short on time." Osborn pulled away from me, tapping his armrest. "In a few moments, the helicopter will radio a distress call, saying we're under attack by the Punisher as we were trying to lift off, and that Rhino was killed by a shaped charge before we were able to get away. We'll land safe and sound in the Park, and no one will be the wiser.

"Now, I know what you're thinking, Herman, because you're not as clever as you believe you are. I can't bring you back to Central Park with me. I wouldn't want to bring you back, anyway, Herman. Not when I can have the next best thing."

Osborn snapped his fingers. In the seat next to him, the other armored guy had been quiet, not saying a word, just looking at me. At the request of Osborn, he reached up, and unsnapped his helmet.

And I was staring at myself.

Same unkempt brown hair, same slightly skewed nose, same brown eyes, same stupid sarcastic smirk.

"Cha...cham..."

"Yes, Chameleon. Considering you were kind enough to dress up in that ridiculous quilt, it was a simple matter for him to steal your backup suit and gloves from the crate of supplies you so kindly had Molecule Man teleport to Central Park a few hours ago." Chameleon, still grinning, unsnapped the armor vest he was wearing. Underneath was my suit, the brown-and-yellow fabric unmistakable. "Without Rhino to cause a fuss, and with Boomerang cutting and running then second you land, there's no one around to question Chameleon's foolproof portrayal of you. Especially with Petruski at his side. I can use them to rally your colleagues to my point of view. So, in a roundabout way, I do owe you my thanks, Herman. Anyone who had their doubts about me, you'll provide the countering viewpoint and bring them around to my way of thinking. Too bad you don't have a wife or children, Herman. I would have seen to it that OsCorp took care of them."

"Mr. Osborn, we're ready when you are," the pilot called from the cockpit. Petruski let go of my chin. As my head dropped to my chest, I could see Chameleon nonchalantly sliding on one of my vibro-smashers from the pair I had packed for transport.

"This leaves us with one final problem, Herman. Namely, what do to with you. And that's very, very simple." I felt someone take my hand. Petruski squeezed my fingers tightly, and once again, that warm fire flared on my palm. This time, however, the fire instantly raced up my arm and flooded my entire body in an instant. Even the tips of my toes felt like someone was jabbing a hot poker under the toenails as Petruski gripped my hand.

"Mr. Osborn knows a thing or two about chemicals, Herman. He gave me a wonderful idea a few weeks ago. The poison that's going through your veins right now? It binds to your nervous system. Slows it down, makes the nerve impulses take just a little longer. Now, the initial problem with the compound was that it broke down too quickly. But if there's one person on this planet who knows how to bind stuff together…" Trapster's voice took on a tone of pride. "The stuff lasts five times longer now. Well enough to shut down someone's entire body for nearly three minutes. Turns out you're not the only genius around, Herman."

"Give him a double dose, Petruski. Just to be sure."

"You got it, Mr. Osborn." Both hands clasped around mine as the needle dug further in. I couldn't even grit my teeth as the poison screwed with my nervous system. I couldn't move my toes. I don't think I could even blink. Was I even still breathing? I couldn't tell. Proper panic couldn't even set in, all the involuntary physical responses failing to come to pass.

"Now here's the beauty of the compound, Herman. I have to be honest, I yanked this from the movie 'The Serpent and the Rainbow.' It works in stages." With one final squeeze, he let go of my hand. My arm instantly fell to my side, dangling towards the floor. But I saw it. I didn't feel gravity pull on it, didn't feel the blood rushing to my fingers. "It starts on the outside and works its way in. So you lose motor functions first, and then you start having organ failure. Liver, pancreas, intestines. The big three are the last to go. You're still breathing, and your heart's still going, even if you can't feel either. I mean…there's something about someone knowing they're going to die, Herman, that really makes them think about the choices in their lives, and what brought them to such a point. Making someone think about their mortality and how they're going to die, and how there's nothing that can be done about it…that was Mr. Osborn's final contribution to the compound."

Osborn waved a hand at Trapster. Immediately, my former friend began to untie the straps that had held me in place. "Petruski is right. One has to understand their past to fully grip their present. This, in a way, is my payment for all you've done to complicate my life over the past week. You can spend the last moments of your subpar existence wondering why all your life's decisions have brought you to this point. If you had just kept your head down, Herman, and plugged away with your meager skills, you could have survived all of this. That's what I want you to ponder as you lay dying, Herman. Bring us down."

Only by the way Osborn shifted slightly was I able to determine that the helicopter was descending. Trapster yanked away the final straps as Osborn studied me. "You could have been someone, Herman. I don't mean what you were over the past few days, someone that will be nothing more than a footnote, soon to be forgotten as history is written by me. I could have used a man like you on my team. Chameleon."

The mimic leaned from his seat and slid open the helicopter's door. As Trapster hoisted me out of the seat, my head lolled loosely on my shoulders. "Goodbye, Herman," he told me, turning my dead weight towards the door. "There is one bit of good news. There aren't any zombies in this part of town, so you'll reanimate in one piece. Maybe you'll run into Rhino when you wake up in, oh, five to ten minutes."

I got a glimpse of pavement as Peter threw me out of the helicopter, before I smashed into the street face first. I couldn't even feel the pain of my nose slamming into the ground as my head turned to the side on impact. Behind me, the sound of the door being slammed shut was louder than the blades of the departing helicopter.

My eyes took in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I knew that much because, beyond the pavement was nothing but dark water, lapping against the side of Manhattan. I couldn't even tell if I was trying to move, because my body wasn't telling me anything. I could hear the waves breaking as I fought to find that willpower I had before, that, and yeah, I'm saying it, heroic spark that got me out of every tough scrape leading up to this point. That thing that kept me going, drove me forward, killing zombies and saving the day.

It didn't come. I couldn't will it into existence. This time out, I was completely and utterly screwed. No tears, no gasps, no death rattles. Just my frozen body and the lapping waves of the dark ocean. I didn't even have the dignity to close my eyes as I laid there dying. I didn't panic, though. I don't think I could have been physically capable of panicking, but I didn't plead, cajole, or try to bargain. I just took in the Atlantic Ocean.

I hadn't been to the beach in forever. That's what crept into my head. Well, I had been to the beach recently, but that was for a job. The last time I had been to a beach for fun had been a few years ago. Fred, Aleksei, myself, and Joystick had pulled off a job up in Boston. The guy who hired us to rip some technology off from Stane Technologies had set us up in a very nice house on Cape Cod, right there on the beach. An entire week of laying low, a fully stocked fridge, all the beer and seafood we could want. It was Aleksei's first job after his suit had been upgraded, and as soon as we got to the beach house, the big guy just peeled off his suit and ran screaming into the ocean. And then came right back out, yelling about how damn cold the North Atlantic was.

Beer on the porch during the day. Beer and lobster on the porch at night. Hearing Boomerang and Joystick going at it while I channel surfed and Aleksei snored, passed out on the couch.

Good times, I thought to myself. My vision was going black, fading along the edges. My view narrowed, taking away the street. One night, Fred has passed out early, and Joystick had wandered into the living room. I wanted to hit on her, but I didn't know if her and Fred were exclusive. Probably not. But I wouldn't screw him over like that. Besides, just because a girl talks to you doesn't mean she wants to jump your bones.

We just sat out on the porch all night, watching the waves come in like I'm doing now. Talking. That was my last time at the beach. That's what I was taking to the grave with me. My best friends in the house, a cold beer in my hand, a pretty woman at my side, and the ocean in front of me.

"Herman."

The cold voice came from behind me. The streetlights that were still working backlit the shadow that fell across my body. "Herman. It's time for you to come with me."

The ocean was a tiny dot for a moment, and then, nothing.

X

"He shouldn't be alive."

"I know. Either Herman's tougher than he looks, or the Trapster's little concoction needed more time in the cooker."

"No, I mean, he shouldn't be alive. As in, we should just off him right now and end his miserable existence."

"Tell you what. You go ahead and kill him, and I'll explain to our boss why you disobeyed orders."

"Our master would never listen to you…"

"Well, I'm listening to him. He says Herman lives, so he lives. Unless you want him to take it all away?"

"Bah. I'm not going against him. I'm just voicing my concerns from a minimum safe distance."

Something cold pushed against the side of my neck. I felt the sharp edge bit into the skin. Which meant I was still alive? Right?

"Don't mark him. Come on, hovering over him's just gonna make you want to do something really stupid. You want to loom, loom from somewhere else."

My ears picked up the sound of rustling fabric. Slowly, I managed to force open my eyelids, going from a world of black to a world of blur. Everything was gray, out of focus. My fingers waggled, and I could feel my toes flexing. My back was slowly registering that I was laying on something hard. My hands rested against something cold...stone, I determined.

Great. So I had feeling back in my body, or I would eventually. But was it because the paralytic poison that had flowed through my veins was wearing off? Or was it because poison doesn't affect the dead?

I couldn't move my head yet, but the world was slowly coming into focus as I blinked to remove the dryness from my eyes. The wall of gray blur above me clarified into...a wall of gray stone. Or a ceiling, if the high arches, the tops wreathed in shadow, that crossed the stone were any indication.

"Ugh..." My mouth worked. So at least I was armed with my infinite reservoir of wit.

"He's awake."

The form that leaned in over my face took a few seconds to come into focus. I beheld a face carved with jagged scars, running from the bridge of his nose to his cheeks, back to his ears, and straight up past his eyes, reaching to the crown of his forehead.

"Hey, Herman. Glad you woke up," said the man with a five-point star on his face.

No. No way. The scars threw me off, but I knew the voice.

"Can't be," I managed to force out in a harsh whisper through dry lips. "You're...you're dead..."

Maxwell Dillon's face took on a twisted smirk as he leered down, his red eyes filled with malice. "I know. And guess what, Herman? So are you."

X

"Come on, get up." Rough hands grabbed me by the front of my armor, easily ignoring the firing of my contact plates as Electro yanked me to a sitting position. My head lolled to the side, but I managed to raise it with great effort. The man in front of me looked like Maxwell Dillon. I recognized the face, even with the jagged scars. The voice was the same. And so was his green-and-yellow uniform, right down to the bullet holes that ran along his torso.

"It's good to see you again, Herman." The raspy voice held a tone of unabashed glee as he let me go. Immediately, I slumped forward, but Electro was right there to push me back up. "Hey, hey, take a second. You died, Herman. Coming back from that's a cast iron bitch. Trust me, I know."

He kept me upright as I managed to slowly regain control of my body. I used my hands to grip the side of the stone slab I had been lying on to help me from falling over. My gloves were gone, and my mask still hung on the back of my uniform. I studied the man in front of me as I tried to figure out just what the hell was going on. Electro stood up straight, pride in his spine. A series of bullet holes stretched across the front of his uniform, blood staining the latex. The jagged tears in his skin were evident, wide open wounds that refused to heal. And his eyes. Just like the Hulk's, a sea of red swirling behind the surface, patches of dead white visible for a split second.

"You were shot..." I took a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand before I sighed with relief. "You were shot, Max. I saw it. You should be dead."

"Should be? Herman, pay attention. It's like I just said...I AM dead. 5.56 mm anti-personnel rounds to the chest will do that to a guy." Electro gently jabbed a figure into one of the tears on his uniform. "Stone cold dead. And let me tell you, being dead, even for a few minutes? It sucks. But you can relate, right?"

"I...no. I'm not dead." The breath in my lungs, and the pounding headache that was slowly forming in my head, that was proof of life.

"Not yet. But you were." Electro pointed at my chest. Looking down, I saw, just above my heart, where the brown fabric had been burned into a charred black. "When I found you, you had just passed on. Expired. Ceased to be. An ex-Shocker. You're lucky that I showed up." He put his hand on my chest...

"JESUS!" The shock caused me to flinch. The world snapped into focus as the electricity arced through me, causing my whole body to spasm. I barely stayed upright as Electro laughed at my misery.

"I had to play 'Defibrillator' and shock you back to life. A few more seconds and whatever junk the Trapster shot in would have screwed your nervous system enough that all the juice in Indian Point couldn't have brought you back. Well, brought you back to life. I'm sure you would have come back eventually..."

Pause.

"This is where you say 'thank you, Max, for saving my life.'"

"The jury's still out on being grateful," I groused. Slowly, I slid off the stone slab. Electro stepped backwards, giving me room to try to stand on wobbly legs. "I have a feeling that this is going to end badly for me," I told him, leaning on the slab for support. "No offense, but having seen the dead get up and walk this past week, meeting a dead man who can talk AND isn't trying to take a bite out of me...why don't I just say 'thank you, Max, for possibly extending my life before it ends in a horrific manner?'"

Electro laughed as I managed to push away from the slab to stand on my own two feet. "Fair enough. And no, Herman. I may be dead, but human flesh doesn't interest me anymore, thanks to my boss.

"Your boss, huh? So he's finally going to meet me face-to-face?"

"Oh, yeah. I mean, you've defied the odds and stayed alive this long. At this point, it's a mix of 'maybe I should offer this guy a job' and 'how the hell does he keep NOT managing to die?' I mean, hell, you pissed off my boss, the Punisher, AND Norman Osborn, Herman! But you're still here, alive, and without missing any chunks of your body. "

I turned my head to look at where I was. Immediately, I knew exactly what building we stood in. It had been years since I had been inside, since my Mom had dragged me here for Easter Mass as a child. Yeah, I know, German last name, Jewish high school, Catholic mother. Any wonder I turned out as screwed up as I was?

"Your boss sure knows how to pick em," I told Electro as I stared out over the nave of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The two of us stood at the altar, which had acted as my cot for however long I was unconscious. The cathedral was dark, the nave stretching towards the entrance lit only by dim candles. Behind the altar, the back of the church was bathed in darkness. The only light came from what still burned in the city outside, coming in through the blue stained glass windows that rested high on the rear wall.

"I love the ambience, Max. It's very Hammer Horror."

"Bah! Still a smart mouth."

It didn't come from Electro. But rather, a second raspy voice spoke from somewhere above us, from the dark alcoves of the nave's ceiling. "The one question he's been squawking about, and instead of asking who, he's busy looking at the décor!"

My shoulders slumped as I recognized the voice. I shouldn't have been surprised, though. If Electro had survived his fatal encounter with the Punisher, why not the guy perched in the shadows as well?

"I'm so used to getting the damn run around from you guys. I figured you'd just flap your gums when you were good and ready."

"As Maxwell said, our Master wants to have a personal chat with you. We've just been chosen to...entertain you until he arrives."

"Entertain me. Again, very Hammer Horror."

My eyes were on the shadows as he glided down from the ceiling. Smoothly, he descended from the darkness like a fallen archangel, metal wings spread over the rows of pews. He landed in front of me, the suit of green power armor shiny and polished, free of any signs of combat or damage.

I couldn't say the same for the face of Adrian Toomes, who sneered as his wings folded behind him. Weeping burn wounds covered what parts of his head still had skin. No hair, even eyebrows, remained. When he smiled, the skin pulled tightly, exposing even more of his skull, a dull white against the angry red of his burned flesh.

"Jesus, Adrian," I breathed softly after I had finished recoiling in disgust. Even with all the carnage and gore I had seen, his visage took the damn cake. It took the cake, brought it home, sliced it up, and served it to an unsuspecting family on their son's birthday. "What the hell happened to you?"

"What do you THINK, Herman? I was blown up by an RPG and covered in burning diesel fuel! You should know! You were there!" He took a step forward, his skull coming fully into view, shimmering wetly in the dim light. "You were the one who locked me in that dumpster and left me a sitting duck for Frank Castle!"

His face was inches from mine. Toomes didn't even have eyes anymore. Twin balls of dark blood took their place, swirling in their sockets. No white as he stared daggers at me, just a swirling mass of red floating in the empty space. "This is the result, Herman. Do you know what it's like to be covered in diesel and set ablaze? I do. Pain like you have yet to experience in your life. My flesh melting away like candle wax, my bones charring from the heat. And then, it all vanished. It all went away. All thanks to our master."

"Huh. So, you take care of the place while he's away?"

The remaining lip on Toomes' face pursed. "You've been hanging around that damnable wall-crawler, Herman. You'll want to take the next few hours very seriously, so shut your mouth and open your eyes and ears if you know what's best for you."

"You'll have to forgive Adrian," Electro spoke from behind me. "He's a little pissed that you got him killed."

Adrian's head tilted to the side, like a bird noticing a piece of bread hitting the sidewalk. "This is your fault, Herman," he said as I watched his teeth click through the melted hole in his cheek. "All of it."

"It ain't my fault." I took a step away from him, his gaze jerkily turning to follow me. "You're the one who tried to kill me. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have gotten locked in that damn dumpster."

"Really?" He took a step forward, lurching towards me. What passed for his eyes narrowed as I recoiled. "Really?"

It was still Adrian Toomes. Sure, his face looked like Dr. Phibes on a REALLY bad day, and there was the whole "why the hell isn't he dead" thing. But this was NOT the strangest...ok, ok, it WAS the strangest thing I'd seen all week. The dead rising from the graves, the skies going black with ash, heroes and villains working together, the Hulk's unstoppable rampage, and now Electro and the Vulture back from the dead, but not as zombies. There just hits a point in your career as a supervillain where nothing can bother you can more. I hadn't hit that point until all this happened, and now I had been dragged headfirst all the way to it. I had seen men ripped apart, and ghouls devour human flesh. Adrian was just...

...disgusting. And it physically made me ill, as the lingering stink of charred flesh emanated from Toomes' body. But the mental engine in my brain didn't stall and put me into emotional vapor lock.

"Yeah, Toomes. Really. You tried to kill me, then you tried to get me killed, then you tried to kill me again, and then in the course of questioning you, I almost got killed! So don't sit there and blame me for you getting killed, because it was YOUR dumb ass that got stuffed in that dumpster in the first place!"

Metal talons dug into my chest, digging into my skin as I grunted in pain. Effortlessly, the Vulture lifted me off the ground with one arm. "Now listen carefully, Herman," he told me as my legs kicked in mid-air. "In the next few hours, things are going to get very, very intense. Your decisions are going to determine the rest of your life. So, show a little bit of your vaunted intelligence, and show us a little respect!"

He reared back, and hurled me forward. I bounced on the stone floor, coming to rest against a stone column after smacking into it back first. I looked up to see the Vulture, hunched over, taking steps in my direction...

"Adrian! Chill out, man. Just be cool, alright."

The Vulture whipped around to stare at Electro. "Be cool? He's responsible for our deaths, Max!"

"Yeah, well, he's got a point. You got stuffed in that dumpster because you were dumb enough to let him get the drop on you," Max replied. "Besides, you heard the boss. We're supposed to keep an eye on him, not beat him up. It'll be better if he's in one piece down the line."

"One piece? Look at me, Max!" A sharp talon pointed at his ruined face. "He's responsible for this!"

"Beating the hell out of him ain't gonna make things better, Adrian. Take a powder, before you do something our boss is gonna make you regret." The Vulture stared at his friend for a second. I thought Adrian was going to lash out and make a stab at Max, but instead, he spun on his heels. Metal clanked on stone as Adrian walked away, heading towards the pews towards the front of the church.

"You ok, Herman," Electro asked.

"What do you think," I answered as I climbed back onto my feet.

"Yeah. Sorry about Adrian. He's obviously a little ticked at you."

"I noticed," I replied. Electro was standing by the altar, arms crossed. If it wasn't for the gunshot wounds and the scars on his face, we could have been back at the bank, talking tough and trying to feel the other person out. Alright. I can play that game. "You're all sunshine and lollipops, though. I think you'd be pissed at me too."

A jagged grin etched across his face. "Oh, I am, Herman. Believe me, the past few days, I've been really upset at you. But you know...this didn't turn out too bad." He snapped his fingers, sending a short bolt of energy into the air. "I can still call the lightning. I don't have to worry about dying anymore. And I'm still on the winning side. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to get my pound of flesh at some point. But I'm not going to be a sourpuss about it."

I responded with a dark chuckle. Granted, he just threatened my life, but there was something about his cheer. "Nice to see you're looking on the bright side of life at least." I wandered forward, towards him. "So, what's the plan? You and Adrian keep me here until your boss shows up?"

"Pretty much. He's out getting everything set up for the big finale. Food, drinks, prizes, and the complete and utter destruction of the Avengers, Norman Osborn, and the rest of humanity." His teeth crackled with lighting as he gave me a wide grin. "Gonna be a hell of a fireworks show, Herman."

"So that's it. Your boss...he's the one behind all of this." He responded with a respectful nod. I had gotten back to the altar now. Electro's body language was confident, cocky. I wasn't a threat to him, especially without my vibrosmashers. "Everything...it's all his doing. The dead rising from the graves. The massacres all around the world. And...the whole red eye thing. It's him. It's not a simple case of your boss trying to be on top when the world ends. It's about ending the world."

"Yes...and no. Hey, you want a drink or something? We got water, and I think there's some of the communion wine left over. This place hasn't been turned into unholy ground quiet yet..."

"God, Max...would you listen to yourself? You're talking like you're working for the Devil!"

"Not quite. He's sitting this one out. God is, too, if he really exists. Anyway, you want that wine or not?"

I was thirsty. "Yeah, sure. Promise me you're not going to poison it, or bleed into it or anything."

He put a hand over his heart, smearing a bit of the blood from a nearby wound. "Herman! Give me some credit. You're a guest. Scout's honor, on the grave of my dead mother. And she is dead. Buried her myself the other night."

This was weird. TOO weird. Max was chatting like it was the most normal thing in the world as he produced two silver goblets from a nearby alcove. "Guess I owed her something. I mean, if it wasn't for her, I never would have become Electro, and ended up like this." From a golden pitcher, the Villain of Voltage proceeded to pour out red wine into the goblets. "What about your folks, Herman? You hear anything from them this week?"

"Dead. A long time ago. And I'm really glad."

Electro walked over and handed me one of the goblets. "So...what should we toast to? The end of the world as we know it?"

After a second of thought, I raised my glass. "How about to everyone getting what they deserve, Max?"

"That, I can do, Herman." With a clink of our goblets, the two of us drank. I needed the refreshing liquid as it rolled down my throat, quenching my thirst and giving me just that little bit of kick in my stomach.

"So, your boss...he's really the guy behind everything," I said as I handed Electro back my drained glass.

"Well, he's the boss here...but in the grand scheme of things, he's just the agent of change. When everyone's dead, he's going to be the one running things down here for the big guy."

"Great. So your boss has a boss?"

"Just one more."

"And where does that put you on the food chain, Max? Foot soldier?"

"For now. I was the last guy brought on board." He walked around the altar, coming to rest on the other side. He faced me, leaning over the stone slab. "I wasn't supposed to be...initiated, yet. Sure, I was working for him, but, you know, I thought it was just a guy making a power play, like the Hood pulled off a few months back. Turns out, it's a lot bigger than I ever imagined."

"Sounds to me," I countered," like you were selling out the human race."

"Oh, I am now. What have they every done for me? Before I died, though, what my boss was offering? Security and safety. From an army that was walking around increasing numbers." His eyes were making me uneasy as he gave me a smile. "You want to know why there wasn't a single zombie in sight during the whole time you and I were in the bank? It's because my boss told them not to eat me. I was a ghost, Herman...me and my crew."

"And they ignored the Vulture and went right for me earlier tonight," I said as the connection clicked. "That's why they walked past him, and didn't try to claw their way into the dumpster. Your boss provides...some kind of immunity."

"And the light bulb just turned on in your head," Electro replied with a smirk. "I didn't know it at the time, but I wasn't in that bank for the gold. What use is my boss going to have for gold and jewels when they're no one left on this planet but the living dead? I was there...for you, Herman."

"For me." At this point, it wasn't a question. Yeah, sure, the universe decided I was a lynchpin in the mad schemes of the guy out to drown the world in a sea of blood and flesh. That low-level degree of infamy was looking better and better all the time. "He used you as bait?"

Max nodded firmly. "He figured you'd come and check out the bank vault eventually. But when you didn't come of your own free will, he decided to dispatch Adrian to lure you close."

Another fuse screwed home. "Adrian. He's who I saw that night. And who I saw on the apartment building across from the Walgreen's."

"Clever, clever," Electro said. "My boss has had his eye on you, Herman, ever since you and Aleksei's little Boy Scout moment outside the 7-11 that very first night...if it's any consolation, I'm sorry about Aleksei. He doesn't deserve to go out that way."

"Huh...you know, he raised a toast to you that night, on the roof," I told him.

"No surprise. He always...for someone with an incredible well of rage inside, he could be a very respectful person. But anyway, I do feel for your loss."

"Yeah, well...back to the bank."

"Ah, yes. You weren't on my boss' radar, Herman, at first. But you became a rallying point. People, instead of cowering in terror behind splintering doors, or being pulled down as they try to make a run for it by a crowd of zombies, were picking up a 2x4 and fending off two or three ghouls at a time. Instead of falling apart and squabbling, the Avengers and the Initiative worked together. And don't get me started on the whole 'supervillains putting everything aside for the sake of humanity' thing." Electro shook his head, rolling his eyes heavenward. "You couldn't have pulled that off if you had TRIED. And yet you did it." Mockingly, Electro clapped his hands together. "Well played, sir. Well played."

"I suppose it's too late to say it wasn't what I had planned, huh," I joked, weakly.

"Much too late. You became a beacon, Herman. Through your actions, hope spread. One light in the darkness, becoming two, becoming four, becoming...well, do the math. And if you're trying to end the human race, you can't have hope." He spread his hands. "That's why you needed to die, Herman. The death of hope. Without you, I'm sure Aleksei couldn't have managed as well as he did, and Fred would have abandoned you in a heartbeat."

"The death of hope? Wow. Ok, Max, I've heard some stupid things in my life, but this..."

One snap of Electro's fingers, and between all five digits on his right hand, lightning crackled back and forth. "Watch your words, Herman."

"I'm sorry, but..."

"No, Herman. Would you put your self-esteem issues to the side for one moment? Your actions, Herman. Ripples in the water. The butterfly effect, to use a cliché. It all emanated from you. In the grand scheme of the universe, Herman, the threads over the past seven days mostly weave back to you. And I'm not lying. My boss has an inside man with the universe."

"No. No, damn it." I stepped away from the altar, turning away as I spoke sharply. "I am not the center of the universe. Everything I did, Max, it was the right thing to do, not because I had this great big grand design to become a superstar. It was the right thing to do, saving people. That's all I wanted to do, and that's all I did."

"Aw. Is big bad Shocker upset someone's finally paying attention to him? Wake up, Herman!" he yelled, slamming his crackling hands on the altar. "You screwed with the fundamental forces of the universe, life and death, and unless you wrap your head around that fact really damn quick, you aren't going to survive this night."

"I won't anyway. Because, if I'm so damn important, why don't you just kill me now, Max? Seriously, just blast away, or get Adrian to decapitate me!"

"I accept that offer," a voice spoke from the high ceiling.

"Adrian, no! Damn it, Herman...you don't just kill hope. You have to break it. Or else...you make a martyr. Why do you think I didn't just kill you back in the bank? I drew it out. Well, you drew it out, but still. You needed to be broken, Herman. To see the futility of your ways. But you just wouldn't die. You kept hope alive."

"If we can just stop the whole 'reason you suck' speech for a moment, Max...so that's why you aren't killing me right now, isn't it?" A smirk spread across my face as I realized why I was still breathing. "Your boss needs me alive."

"For a while longer, anyway. But you see, Herman...the death of hope doesn't mean...well, physical death. What if you came over to our side? Worked for my boss? If everyone saw you on the side of the Devil, it's almost the same as seeing you broken and defeated. You step out there, standing beside me...and I could just imagine the entire world deflating."

Point, Electro.

"Think about it, Herman. He's going to win. Osborn can't stop him, Stark can't stop him, Fury can't. No one can. It's like I said earlier...why not come work for the winning side?"

"It's hard to agree, Max, when I see you haven't taken the victory lap yet. You're a lousy pitchman."

He shrugged his shoulders, his scarred face giving me an "aw shucks" look. "Well I'm just the warm up act."

"Yeah...alright. Well, no offense, but I really would like to meet your boss soon. I mean, I'm very impressed with that way you've gone out of your way not to mention him by name, other than 'the boss' and Adrian's rendition of Renfield."

"Eh...suspense, Herman. If I told you who it was, it would lose some of the shock when you finally do meet..."

A loud creaking sound.

"...him. And here he is now."

I turned towards the sound of metal grinding on stone. At the far end of the cathedral, a set of the massive wooden doors were swinging open. The entry way was shrouded in darkness, and the lights of Rockefeller Center across the street provided the only illumination, backlighting the group of individuals now making their way inside.

I felt a firm hand fall on my shoulder. "Don't falter now, Herman," Electro said in a low voice. "Show a little steel in your backbone, alright?"

"Been getting my ass kicked up and down Manhattan all week long," I whispered in response. "It does wonders for one's 'why should I be impressed by you' reflex."

"Say that now..." he said, before Electro took a step backwards. The doors swung closed, black falling over the far end of Saint Patrick's. My eyes readjusted to the gloom, allowing me to see several figures walking towards me. They moved slowly, in a pack, but they didn't shuffle like the living dead. It was more like, well, a church procession. At the front of the group was the tallest of them. He strode with powerful strides, walking down the aisle like he owned the place, while the...four...no, five people behind him followed with a deferred pace, acknowledging who their leader was.

"That's him, Herman. No more games, no more double talk. That's your destiny, right there. Hope you're ready for it." Out of the corner of my eye, Electro had dropped down to one knee, his head bowed, as he approached. Slowly, he was coming into the light, allowing me to make out the cape billowing behind him. He wore a blue-and-black suit of some kind, metallic, molded body armor...

My breath caught in my throat. "Oh...oh, my God," I stuttered. As he crossed the final row of pews, there was no mistaking who I was looking at. He had changed his helmet, getting rid of the struts that had stuck out of the side. But other than that, he was exactly the same. Blue armor. A red cloak that flowed behind him. A skull and crossbones emblazoned on the chestpiece.

And, instead of a right hand, it was his trademark. Not just for him, but for an image that stretched back centuries, something that every human being, at one point of another, has pondered, and eventually, met face-to-face. Tonight, there was a damn good chance it would be my turn.

The procession behind him fanned out, taking their seats in the pews like normal parishioners. He strode to the altar, his eyes locked directly on to me. They had been ever since he had walked inside. This church, this place of worship, holy ground...now suddenly, the gothic styling of one of the most sacred places in New York City felt blasphemous. The angles of the stonework seemed sharper. The arches loomed higher. And the wine I had drunk earlier swirled in my stomach, all because of this man's very presence.

Metal boots stomped on the stone floor, echoing throughout the cavernous building. I couldn't move...I could barely breathe...as the man who, according to Electro, was responsible for everything that was happening strode directly up the small steps to where I stood by the altar. It made sense. It made PERFECT sense.

He came to a halt, towering over me by a couple of inches. His eyes were a maelstrom of red in stark contrast to his pale gray skin. All I could do was stare up at him. My hands were clenched, my palms clammy with sweat. I had steel in my spine, but that's because I couldn't do anything else but just lock up.

"Dillon," his voice said, scraping across the stone walls like sandpaper. "I see you kept him alive. Well done. You controlled your anger."

"Wasn't a problem, boss," Electro responded, his eyes still locked on the floor. "Figured if I scratched his paint job, you'd scratch mine a lot worse in return."

"A crude analogy, but very appropriate." Even as he addressed Max, his gaze never wavered or broke from mine. It was a staring contest I was losing by refusing to blink. "Herman Schultz. You can take that look of shocked awe off your face at any time. It's very unbecoming of the hero of the day."

The tap-tap-tapping of the personification of Death's trademark weapon broke my fearful reverie. "I should have known," I choked out. "I should have known you were involved somehow. I thought of you, outside the 7-11. I wondered what you were, but I put it right out of my head. This is too good an opportunity for you to pass up. A whole new order, with yourself at the top."

"Not the very top, Herman," the Grim Reaper said, a tight smile on his face. "But pretty damn close."


	31. The Gospel According to Eric Williams

"So, welcome to my new home." The Grim Reaper swept his left arm over the length of the church. "It's big, it's historic, and once we cleared out the few parishioners who refused to leave, we found it to be downright comfortable. And you can't beat the location. Only a few blocks from the beating heart of New York City!" He lowered his voice for the next sentence. "The mass of humanity sitting like helpless ducks in Central Park."

Eric Williams. Brother to Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man of the Avengers. Member of the Maggia organized crime syndicate. Longtime blood enemy of the Avengers. Sorcerer of the black arts. Former zombie, until he was resurrected. And, apparently, the man responsible for the zombie uprising.

It made sense. It made a lot of sense.

Eric Williams had always lived in his brother's shadow. Where Simon Williams went on to become a businessman, a movie star, and an Avenger, Eric turned to the Maggia and became one of their top associates out in Las Vegas. When Simon died at the hands of the Avengers (long story, short version, Wonder Man used to be a bad guy), Eric turned to the Tinkerer. To a vengeful Eric, it made perfect sense to have his right hand amputated, replace it with a scythe, and wage a personal war against the Avengers. Even when it turned out Wonder Man wasn't dead (again, long story), Eric, now calling himself the Grim Reaper, continued to take on the Avengers time and time again, fighting with his brother most of the time. Somewhere along the way, the Grim Reaper died, but was brought back to life, picking up a bit of black magic during the process. I don't know the details, since magic's not my thing and it is a bit weird to ask someone "hey, so tell me all about the time you died."

People look at the Grim Reaper and saw a big guy, in power armor, with a scythe that could drain the life from someone, shoot AND deflect energy blasts, slice bullets out of mid-air, and turn into a mini-helicopter that let him fly. Add to it the very image of the Grim Reaper as Death himself to most of humanity, and you had a guy people were a little wary of crossing. Here was a guy who could hold his own against the Avengers and screwed around with the dark arts. They always forgot one thing, though. Eric Williams is a master criminal as well. You don't rise in the Maggia without being good at being bad. There's a reason the Grim Reaper, even in that outfit, ran things out in Las Vegas for years under the reign of the Maggia. Adrian had been right earlier. I had worked with him before. Once, during the registration mess, we had tried to reform the Sinister Six. Note the use of the word 'once.' But I knew Williams, and I knew his reputation.

Technology. Magic. Thuggery. Add it all together, and yeah, here's a guy perfectly capable of bringing about the end of the world given the right tools and proper motivation.

X

"So...this is all your doing, Eric."

He responded by gently waving the scythe in my direction. "Reaper, please. You may stand on informality with Dillon, but you won't with me. And yes. The worldwide resurrection of the dead was my doing. I had some help, of course, but the onus falls upon me, Herman."

There was only one question I could follow up with. "But...why, man?"

He stared at me for a second, just a heartbeat's worth of time that made me regret opening my damn mouth. "Come on, Herman. Let's talk. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and I'll do my best to answer them and explain what the hell's going on. Baron Toomes," he called to the ceiling above us, "keep an eye on the outside and alert me if someone approaches. Everyone else, use this time to prepare for the final phase of our master's plan."

As the rustling of metal wings passed by overhead, the Grim Reaper motioned with his scythe towards the back of the church, past the altar. "Let's speak in privacy, Herman," he said politely before walking past me. I took a few wary steps in that direction, one eye on the Grim Reaper as I followed. He walked behind me, each step echoing. Electro took a step backwards, to let us pass, before moving back to stand beside the altar. Near the very back of the church, under the tall stained glass windows, there was a wooden throne, where the priest holding the Mass would sit. That's where the Grim Reaper was heading. He spun around, his cape flourishing behind him, and parked himself in it, sitting down as I stopped in front of him. Something must have been leaking back here, because I could hear a steady "drip, drip, drip" coming from somewhere. Damn. When even Saint Pat's is falling apart, you know New York's in trouble.

Reaper slumped a bit in his throne, leaning on his hand as he spoke to me in a casual tone, like two people chatting over a beer. "You should be dead, Herman. You should be dead many times over. But here you are."

"Yeah, no thanks to you, Reaper. First Electro, then the Vulture, and then the Hulk?"

"Electro and the Vulture, yes. They were sent out to kill you, Herman. But the Hulk was just pure fate. Trust me, I didn't set out to use the Hulk to kill you. That would be like using an atomic bomb to end a bedbug infestation." He smirked under his helmet. "You just got in his way, and I figured I might as well kill you while you were offering yourself up on a silver platter And you ended up getting him killed as well."

"He was already dead. I saw the bite wound. The Hulk was some kind of souped-up zombie, Reaper. And since he had red eyes, and you have red eyes, and Electro and Vulture now have red eyes, I'm going to hazard a guess and say you had something to do with him taking on the Avengers." Reaper simply nodded in acknowledgement. "Alright then. So, was he working for you? Did you bring him back to life like you did Heckel and Jeckel out there?"

"No, Herman, he wasn't working for me. I...borrowed his corpse when he died. That's the best way to put it." Reaper leaned forward slightly, his left hand resting on his right wrist. "Herman, allow me to be frank..." He paused, before chuckling briefly. "No, that would be ironic. Allow me to be honest. I want you working for me. Killing you has become more trouble than it would possibly be worth to me. You've proven time and time again how adaptable you are, surviving the end of the world...no, not surviving. Thriving. You're a lone wolf, one light in the darkness. A candle that could easily be snuffed out with a snap of my fingers. But you refuse to die. You refuse to just roll over in the face of impossible odds, Herman. Look around you, though." He motioned to the entirety of Saint Patrick's in a wide, sweeping gesture. "The odds can't get any longer. This is where I offer you a chance, Herman, to stop fighting and join up with what Dillon calls 'the winning side.'" Another low chuckle, the laughter mixing in with the sound of dripping. "But let's be honest. It's really 'the eternal side."

Silence. I just stared at him, not saying a word. Reaper did the same for a few seconds, before going on. "I understand your apprehension, Herman. You probably think I'm turning my back on the human race, handing them over to the living dead. But let's be honest. What has humanity ever done for you? Oh, sure, right now, they love you, Herman. You're a star. You're hope in human form. And when that's over? Do you think they'll respect you forever?"

After I didn't say anything for a bit, with only the sound of dripping to break the silence, he plowed on. "Respect is nice, don't get me wrong. There's a reason I chose this image, this persona for myself. Death. Nothing gets more respect. It's why people eat better, exercise, go to the doctor all time. It's the one thing in this life that's certain. That life ends. And soon, life will end for humanity, Herman."

Drip. Drip. Drip.

His lower lip was sucked into his mouth as the Grim Reaper studied the silent me. "I know it's a momentous decision, Herman. Maybe I spoke too soon. Not all of humanity will be gone. Just most of it. There will be a few left to serve us, to be our entertainment, to keep us from being bored. That's something you always wanted, isn't it? The most reward for the minimum amount of work?"

Drip. Drip.

"It can all be yours, Herman. You've shown talent, skill, resolve...here's your chance to get everything you wanted."

Drip.

"Just say the word, Herman."

Dr...

"Say it, Herman," he hissed at me. "Don't stand there like a mute beggar, say you accept."

"Why?"

One simple question. One easy word. And it seemed to throw Reaper for a loop. He leaned back on his throne, studying me with red eyes. "Why? Herman, pay attention when I speak."

"I really don't give a damn about your pitch right now, Eric."

THAT got his attention. He quietly leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Herman, don't think my patience has no limits."

"Alright, sorry...Reaper." I put my hands out in a peaceful gesture. "But seriously, that's your pitch? No offense, but I'm standing in a city that's seen demons invade, giant robots crash land, massive aliens hovering overhead threatening to eat the planet, superheroes running around beating the hell out of each other. You're going to have to forgive me if I don't foresee the damn Avengers kicking down your front door at some point in the near future and Sentry throwing you into the sun."

"And if that happened, Herman, would you join them in fighting me? Or would you get out of their way?" The Grim Reaper leaned back now, resting comfortably on his wooden throne. "The Avengers have been accounted for, Herman. Believe me when I say, I wouldn't be trying to hand this planet over to the living dead without accounting for every last detail. Granted, I've had to improvise, considering that people I thought would have hidden under their couches or taken advantage of this situation had instead joined the fray against me, but they're nothing in the grand scheme of things."

I took a step forward, feeling just enough courage to risk an act. He didn't budge or react, staying slumped back on his throne. "You aren't answering my question, Reaper. I want to know why you're doing this. Don't tempt me with rewards that I'll probably never see. Give me your reason. That's what I want to know."

"Very well. You want to know the truth. The reason why things work. No wonder you went the engineering path, Herman." The Grim Reaper sat up now, one hand and the wrist attachment of his scythe set upon the armrests. "I had a vision a few weeks ago. It came to me as I was holed up in a second-rate Maggia safehouse in Trenton. I was tinkering with my scythe when I saw my future, Herman. As clear as day, my fate was laid right out before me. I lay in a prison infirmary, my life bleeding out from a shank in my chest...and my brother, Simon, the sniveling caveman was holding my hand as I lay dying. The indignity of having the man I hate the most on this entire planet soothing me and telling me everything would be alright..."

Reaper took a deep breath. I watched as his shoulders moved. Was he still alive? Or just breathing for dramatic effect? I kept an eye on him, trying to see if under that power armor, he was still using his lungs. "I remember one thing, though. As clear as day. Simon told me that it was the fault of the American people that I had been stabbed. That they had made a mistake, putting their trust into the hands of the man who had paid off a prisoner to kill me.

"And that man...was Norman Osborn."

Drip. Drip.

"Osborn," I asked incredulously. "Norman Osborn? Seriously?"

"Seriously."

God damn it. Why the hell does everything in the damn world have to come back to Norman Osborn? The entire universe is revolving around this damn guy!

"So you saw a vision where Norman Osborn is responsible for some prisoner shanking you? And that's what set you off?"

"There's more, Herman. He who showed me the vision took me further into the future, past my death. My death, due to the machinations of Norman Osborn, were just part of a list of objectives he wants to complete. And once he's achieved what he wants, Herman, Osborn will put this entire planet under siege. In the end, everything dies. I saw cities burning," the Grim Reaper told me. "I saw the seas boiling. Animals turning on each other. Plants withering and dying. And in the very end, even over an empire of ash, Osborn still waging war."

"...right. Don't get me wrong, Reaper, it sounds like something Osborn would do. But come on, you had a bad daydream."

"You don't get it, Herman. Peel back your perceptions of reality for one second. I saw this vision. And I heard a voice...it spoke to me, Herman. He showed me these things, and told me what had to be done."

Great. Now we've added voices into the mix. I'd say Grim Reaper's gone bye-bye if it wasn't for the red eyes and the fact he seemed to raise two of my former colleagues from the dead.

"So someone showed you the future? Did you happen to get a name, or was this an unlisted phone call?"

The Grim Reaper laughed in response. "I know his name, Herman. It is a name not to be mentioned lightly. But I owe you that much, since you're seeking such knowledge. He's known by many names across many dimensions..."

"Oh, come on, can you just cut the theatrics, Reaper? You know me. The whole big song and dance, it doesn't impress me. The chase, get to the chase."

Maybe...maybe that was the wrong path to take. His eyes suddenly flared brightly, the deep red being replaced by a bright ruby. I took a step backwards, almost tripping over my feet, as the Grim Reaper's head burst into crimson flames. He didn't flinch from the heat, but I felt it crash into my face, a wave of energy that smacked my brain across the frontal lobe. Rock still, unfazed by the inferno that engulfed his skull, the Reaper's mouth opened. What poured out was eternity, speaking with the voice of forever. I had to grab on to a nearby support pillar as I sunk to my knees, my body in pure awe as it spoke.

"I AM THE ENVOY OF CHAOS, HERMAN SCHULTZ. MY GAZE HAD TURNED UPON YOU. YOU HAVE DRAWN THE ATTENTION OF THE LORD OF THE DARK DIMENSION. I AM THE DREAD ONE. I...AM DORMAMMU, AND ERIC WILLIAMS IS MY VOICE UPON THIS DYING EARTH."

Each word scraped into my eardrum like a sharp nail. I watched as the flames wreathed around the Grim Reaper for a few more seconds, illuminating the area around him, before suddenly snapping out of existence. My eyes had to readjust to the sudden lack of fire as Reaper slowly smiled at me. "Now you know, Herman. He's the one in charge. I'm just his right-hand for the moment."

"...yeah." I had nothing. That...if that wasn't a god, it was pretty damn close. And I don't mean a god like Thor. I mean...I could imagining people worshipping in fear and awe, giving their devotion simply because he was that powerful. I had never heard of his name before this evening. I would never forget it for the rest of my life.

"You know now why I wouldn't use his name casually, Herman. His name holds such power, it should be spoken with respect and praise."

Ok. Ok, ok, ok. I'm finally in WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over my head. Zombies, ok. Supervillains trying to kill me, ok. Billionaire industrialists screwing me over? Par for the course. Things other dimensions knowing me by name? Oh dear God...if you're looking for someone to crack quality quips in the face of pants-crapping terror, go find Spider-Man. I'll be standing here paralyzed.

"He showed me what had to be done, Herman. He showed me how to stop Osborn. Told me what I had to do. Who I had to talk to. Late at night, he'd whisper into my ear, telling me what circles to draw. Where to incant passages from certain books. Which graves to dig up. Who to recruit. All of it, Herman. Every action building upon itself, all leading up to one glorious moment, when the final sacrifice was made. It was a fine bit of irony...the Hood died screaming, but within minutes, Herman, he had sat back up and stumbled out the door. An hour later, the first reports started to filter in. Two hours later, the body of the Wrecker that our sacrifice had infected reanimated in SHIELD headquarters. From there, it was time, Herman. Just a simple matter of time, before the whole rotten structure collapsed upon itself."

"...that's your plan? That's...his plan? To stop Norman Osborn, you're going to kill humanity? How does that help anyone? How does that save humanity? It doesn't make sense, Reaper."

"Save humanity? Herman...why would I want to SAVE humanity? Didn't you hear what I told you? My brother told me it was America's fault for putting their trust in the hands of Norman Osborn. And the rest of the world has sat by and done nothing. This whole plan isn't about saving humanity, Herman. It's about making sure Osborn isn't the last man standing. It's to make sure HE is. With the right people around to make sure everything that remains runs nice and smooth."

Follow the bouncing ball, Herman. "So...this isn't about stopping Osborn for the sake of the human race. It's about stopping Osborn so YOUR boss can rule over the planet once everyone else is gone."

"He's been trying for centuries. It was only recently that he came into possession of something that gave him the ultimate opportunity. A way to bring back the dead, Herman. Not resurrection, because I know something about that," Reaper clarified. "But, much like those old movies, the reanimation of dead flesh into something quasi-living. It just needed a little refinement, Herman. A little tweaking in the lab, some magic spells, a sacrifice or two, and we had it. A curse to lay upon the entire world. Once the last breath had left our final sacrifice, anyone who died became one of them. Of course, the Hood resisted, because he thought a zombie apocalypse would be bad for business. But my boss...he doesn't take 'no' for an answer Herman. But even in punishment, blessings are handed out. The Hood was the first, Herman, sliced open throat to waist and brought back to life. And it worked, Herman. It worked wonders. And when we turned her loose upon the Wrecker, not even Asgardian magic could stop our curse."

Curses? Sacrifices? Each sentence from the Grim Reaper pulled me further down the rabbit hole. This is what I wanted to know, right? "That's why Aleksei got scratched. Those things, they can tear through skin. That's why the Wrecker was all messed up. It's how Tombstone croaked."

"Tombstone...if he hadn't been too greedy, he could have had it all. I would have offered him the same deal I offered Dillon. But back on topic...if the living dead posed no threat to superhumans, the Avengers would tear them apart in a blink. By putting them at risk, I had hoped to make the Avengers and their ilk pause, consider their options, while our own plans were put into motion. To have them huddle behind closed doors while an army of the damned tore humanity to pieces. But then, on the very first night, bare hours…hours, Herman," he hissed at me, "after everything was put into motion, a pair of third-tier losers play hero on national television. After that, there was no way the Avengers could sit back and look like cowards, so they fly out of their hovels and do their jobs. And from there, crawling from their holes in the ground, the criminals, the villains, decided to throw their lot in with the heroes…"

Waves of anger crashed in his red eyes. "You were the fly in the ointment, Herman, of his grand plan. You had to be broken. How does it feel, Herman, to know you've annoyed a being so powerful that he's turned his gaze upon something so small, so insignificant?"

"Personally, Reaper? It's like being in the crosshairs of the Punisher after years of keeping my ass off the radar." Reaper gave an evil smile at my response as I plowed ahead. "Alright, alright, so…your boss…wants to kill me. Or convert me. So let's put that to the side for a second. I get the whole using magic to bring the dead back to life thing. I don't understand it, but I get it. That doesn't explain…" I waved a hand over my face. "…the eyes."

"Ah," he said, nodding at my statement. "I've been remiss. All this talk about the 'how' and 'why,' and I've missed one thing that would interest an engineer. What am I capable of? Where to start…" The tip of his scythe tapped on the ground as Reaper pondered his options. "Well, to begin, the living dead fall under my sway. They have their own instincts, of course, and base hungers. But if I wish for them to leave someone alone, to let them pass unhindered, they have no choice but to bend to my will. If need me, though, I could also take a more…direct control over one of the living dead. They become a puppet to my whims, dancing to whatever tune I play."

"Ah ha," I found myself saying. "That'd explain the Hulk, and why he wasn't trying to eat me or Ms. Marvel. You were controlling him so he'd kick everyone's ass."

"Exactly. Mr. Banner was indeed a mindless zombie when I came across him, but still, he could have served a purpose if it hadn't been for you and Hydro-Man. Hydro-Man...I never, not even in my most ambitious moments, would have imagined the Incredible Hulk laid low by Morris Bench," Reaper mused, waving a dismissive hand. "Moving on, consider Adrian Toomes. A few weeks ago, he was residing in an assisted living facility, a shell of a man. When I approached him, Toomes had all but given up on life, content to sit out and let the world pass him by. But I couldn't pass up his talents, his creativity. So I made him a very simple offer. His undying loyalty for a chance to soar over this city again, to sow the fear he once instilled in the citizenry. And when he accepted without a moment's hesitation...with my power over death comes the power over life as well, Herman. A snap of my fingers, and the effects of his stroke were gone. Just like that, the Vulture flew again."

I couldn't help it. I spat out the first thing that came to my mind. Not the absurdity of the situation, not the practical applications, not the world-ending ramifications...

"So you can raise the dead and heal the sick. At the first 'I am Jesus' comment, Reaper, my ass is walking out that front door."

He responded with a low chuckle, barely audible. "Right now, Herman, I'm bigger than Jesus."

Lightning didn't strike him for that comment. "Alright, so explain this to me. Adrian looked fine when he was trying to kill me a couple nights back. Now, though, he looks like a walking jigsaw puzzle. You couldn't heal that right up?"

"Astute question, Herman. Simple answer, though. I can't heal the dead." Reaper nodded towards the dark alcoves above the cathedral. "Toomes is dead, Herman. So is Dillon. They both died, but before the curse of my master could lay claim to them and bid them to rise as the living dead, I brought them back to life. Well, a semblance of life. They're tougher than when they were alive, and nearly impossible to put down for a second time. But...I can't cure what killed them. Dillon will always have those gunshot wounds to remind him of his death, and Adrian's skin will remain that way, as his body was in flames as he passed on. Death leaves his mark, Herman. Always."

One more question, the one that I had asked originally. "The eyes, Reaper. What's with them?"

"That's simple," Reaper replied. "My master asked me to come up with a mark, something to imprint upon the chosen. I've seen enough horror movies, Herman, to know red eyes make a simple, but unforgettable, statement. And that, Herman," Reaper said, "concludes our question and answer session..."

"One more question, Reaper." His face took on a scowl, his red eyes narrowing slightly under his helmet. "Ok, ok, sorry..."

"One more." Reaper slowly lifted his scythe, slowly jabbing it in my direction with each spoken word. "But only one."

I chose my words carefully. "The Hulk. What were you going to do with him? Just have him kick the crap out of the Avengers?" Silence. Reaper's response was just to stare at me. That dripping sound was still there, somewhere behind Reaper, as his red eyes studies me. Yeah, Eric was right – that are pretty unforgettable once they're bored in on you.

"Yes. What else would I have used him for?"

"Fair enough," I responded.

He stood up from the throne, smoothing out his cape before stepping towards me. "I will say this, Herman. You're taking this remarkably well. Toomes was more taken aback when I laid my grand design out for him. And Dillon screamed for an hour like a little girl after I pulled him back to life."

"Don't get me wrong, Reaper, this is still way over my head. By this point, though...I admit, seeing your boss with your head on fire threw me for a freakin' loop, but everything else...by this point, man, I'm just numb. My mind's damn near punch drunk."

"That's what I always liked about you, Herman," Reaper said as he came to a stop in front of me. "You always recovered well whenever anyone blew your cool." His hand rested on my shoulder. He may have been going for solidarity and camaraderie, but I just found it creepy and winced a bit at his touch. "Herman, you'll have a seat at the table. Nothing will be able to touch you. The world will be yours once the heroes have been eliminated. How could you possibly say no?"

I slid my shoulder out from under his grasp. "You killed the world, Reaper. This is...this is like the Crusades, World War II, and the Registration Act mess all rolled into one. And you...you expect me to want to join up?"

"No, Herman. I expect you to want to win." He patted me on the shoulder again, an almost caring gesture. "Think it over. There's still time. Let me know when you've decided."

I knew my answer. Even as he brushed past me, I almost yelled it out in pure defiance. "Screw you and the pale horse you rode in on, Reaper. I might be scum, but I'm not going to stand with the people who want to murder the world."

Reaper kept walking, calling over his shoulder as he strode towards the rows of pews. "You're making a very hasty decision, Herman. Take some time to ponder your options..."

"I don't need to." I called out loudly, letting my voice carry throughout the entire cathedral. "Nothing you offered me could make me want to help you end the world. You're...you're killing everyone. Even for you, Eric, that's a bit insane."

He turned slightly at the sound of his name. "Herman..."

"No. Uh uh. I don't care if helping you do whatever that guy who lit your skull on fire gets me a three-way with Ms. Marvel and Mary Jane Watson, it ain't worth it."

"Actually, Herman, I could make that happen."

"Hah! No, trust me, it's been a week since the world started to end. If some desperate woman hasn't ripped my clothes off and banged me like there was no tomorrow by now, it ain't gonna happen."

"Sarcastic, to the last." Reaper turned around, his cape billowing behind him. His right arm came up, pointing that scythe at me. An angry purple glow began to run up and down the length of the weapon, and his words dripped with dark poison. "Herman, ponder your next words very carefully..."

"Eric, I'll say this in terms maybe you could understand." In front of an entire church of proto-necromancers and two former colleagues who had died and been brought back to life, standing across the back vestibule from a man who had become Death incarnate, I crossed my arms and stood my ground. "If Aleksei was standing next to me, he'd shake his head that I'd even consider your offer. That right there, tells me all I need to know."

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"Of course. You'd take the imaginary advice of a dead imbecile over practical reality," he spat. "That explains so much about your actions over this past week." I just raised an eyebrow. No fear. No worries. Sure, I was probably going to die horribly in the next few seconds, but hey, I'm going out on my terms. That's all you could ask for, right? No zombies, no pistol barrels in your face, just you and Death. I couldn't smile, but I wasn't going to beg or cajole. My call, and I'd made it. Drop the chips, splash the pot, let's see how Herman Schultz leaves this world.

What I could make out of his face wasn't too pleased with my decision. But his words threw me for a bit of a loop. "Herman, I want you to do me one small favor. Just one. If you won't join me and help rule what's left of this planet, could you at least turn your blue collar skills to finding out what the horrible dripping sound is?"

Ok, trap. Extremely obvious trap. 'Sticking your head under a guillotine to figure out what's wrong with the tracks' levels of obvious pain and suffering trap. I didn't budge, not breaking my gaze from the Grim Reaper. After a couple of moments, he sighed, and motioned towards the back of the church. "I promise, it's not a trap." Which meant is was a trap. "I just want you to see if you could determine the source." Oh no, I wasn't falling for that. I just kept my arms crossed, not taking a step from where I was standing.

"Damn it. I knew you were stubborn, Herman, but this is beyond the pale. Fine. I was going to save the big dramatic reveal for when you found the source, but I'm running out of patience!"

"Hey, boss? I think I can salvage something out of this." From the side, Electro took a step forward, away from the stone pillar he had been leaning against. "Sometimes, people just ain't in the mood to play along. In that case, you gotta hit them over the head with a brick." He raised one of his gloved hands. From the tips of his fingers to his elbow, his entire forearm was sheathed in crackling energy. Grinning with a yellow smile, he took a step towards me. Oh, great, Shocker vs. Electro, Round 3. I took a few steps away from the advancing dynamo, my hands reaching out for anything to use as a weapon.

"I ain't surprised you're showing a bit of dumb pride," Electro said as he advanced towards me. "Maybe the boss should have told you, joining up with him means protection from me as well, Herman. I'm gonna enjoy killing you."

"No, Dillon, not yet! He might still be of use!"

"You should listen to your boss." My hands found a long steel candlebra. I whipped it around, holding it out in front of me to protect me from Electro. He paused as he saw my weapon, cocking his head to the side.

"Seriously? Herman, that's a metal rod."

"Well, I couldn't find a rubber bathmat to roll up and smack you with. Excuse me for trying to improvise."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you yet, Herman. I just figured...maybe you need to see the light." Electro raised his hand, pointing towards the dark blue stained glass windows behind the wooden throne in the back of the church. A bolt of lightning streaked from an outstretched finger into the darkness, illuminating it with a shower of sparks as the lightning slammed into its target. The jolt of power kicked on a series of floodlights, shining brightly upon the back wall of St Patrick's Cathedral. The lower part, below the window, was lit up from the bright white lights. It took my eyes a second to adjust. Streaks of black kept falling through the white, messing with my vision. I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut, before trying again, the smell of ozone lingering in the air. Everything toned down after a few seconds, allowing me to see the drops of liquid falling from the ceiling.

Drops of red liquid.

"Oh, crap," I said, my shoulders slumping. The tip of the candlebra tapped on the floor as it almost slipped from my hands. "That's blood, ain't it?"

"Just so we can eliminate yet another game of 'The Shocker Asks 20 Questions,' yeah, that's blood. Human blood. And it's coming from the last person to turn us down. Yo, boss, can we skip the theatrics and jump right to the big reveal?"

"Yes, Dillon," Reaper replied. "The hour is getting late."

"Now, Herman," Electro said as he raised both arms, pointing them into the high darkness above the stained glass, "you're going to want to pay very close attention to this part. Due to space constraints and, well, a pressing engagement at Central Park, this isn't your fate exactly. But you'll get the general idea if you say 'no' one more time."

Lightning exploded from the Villain of Voltage, instantly cracking through the air towards the stained glass windows. Electro maintained his pose, adding some showmanship to his stance, as the shot of power ignited another set of floodlights. "Get a good look, Herman," he yelled dramatically, enjoying himself way too much, as the high ceiling lit up, "at what happens to idiots who turn down the Grim Reaper! And if I could channel a little Jack Van Impe...behold the Upside Down Sinner!"

He was strung up at an angle, just past forty-five degrees, so the blood slowly dripped from his body, disappearing behind the high back of the throne before splattering on the stone floor. Since this was a church, and the Grim Reaper had decided to eschew "Hot Topic blasphemy" and go right for "desecration of the diocese," his legs had been crossed at the ankles and barbed wire used to bind his feet to the wooden cross. And, to complete the image, his arms had been pulled to the sides, and more barbed wire tied his wrists to the cross.

"I think binding him upside down was a great touch, boss," Max said as blood dripped from just below where his head rested against the cross. "Makes it easier to drain him dry."

"You gotta be kidding me," I breathed as I took in the scene. Drop by drop, they were killing the man crucified above one of the holiest sites in the United States. That would have been horrifying enough, especially since the pool of blood was just starting to seep under the foot of the throne. When you took into account just who it was they were keeping alive, letting him bleed out tiny drop by tiny drop, well, that just was the icing on the psychopathic...sociopathic...homicidal? Hell, keep it simple; the icing on the crazy cake. Just when I thought the rabbit hole couldn't go any deeper...

...seeing the Punisher trussed up and left to drain like a chicken showed me just how far gone the world was. And how much further did the Grim Reaper and his master want to push it over the edge?

X

"We made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he refused it." Electro was smirking like the cat who ate the canary as I turned around to face him. "He turned down a chance to take Norman Osborn down a freakin' peg. Dumb move. You'd think a guy like that would jump at the chance...here I thought the guy who finally brought me down would have some intelligence."

"That's...that's the Punisher, Max," I said, gesturing over my shoulder.

"Uh, yeah, Herman. Like I said, Grim Reaper asked Castle if he wanted to work for us. And obviously...he said no. Violently." Electro gave a half-hearted shrug. "Luckily, Reaper got to Black Talon before he bled out. Never gonna see out of that eye again. And man, that eye patch looks dumb with that chicken ritual outfit of his..."

"That's the Punisher, Max."

"Um...yeah, Herman. Like I said. Come on, man, pay attention."

"Just...whoa," I said, shaking my head. "You captured the Punisher, he turned you down...and Reaper, you didn't just off him right then and there?"

"I decided to make him suffer," he responded. "Besides, bleeding him to death over three days, and bringing him back right afterwards...well, it's kind of poetic if you think about it."

After my jaw dropped for a few seconds, I decided it was time to sum up this entire situation in a very simple and succinct phase.

"You're fucking nuts."

"Hey, language," Max proclaimed.

"No. No, I stand by my statement! This...this is just too much, Eric..."

I like to think I had a great monologue planned, something to hit home and really cement the heroic stand I was about to make. 50,000 volts coursing through your neck tends to cut off your speech, though. I fell to my knees, my body convulsing as Electro's hand squeezed around my throat.

"Get his name right, Herman. The Grim Reaper. Show a little respect for once in your miserable life."

"Dillon, bring him here." Now both hands gripped me by the neck, and I was dragged along, my knees scraping across the stone floor. Electro dragged me to the Grim Reaper's feet, before moving to stand behind me. One hand still rested on my neck, with the voltage level pumping through me low enough to cause paralysis, but not enough to kill me. Towering over me, the Grim Reaper held his scythe out to one side, cutting a figure of despair as he spoke. "Herman, Herman, Herman. I've given you so many opportunities, not only to sit at the table after the Final Judgment, but to actually remain alive. To let you get a shot at the man who just poisoned you and left you to die. And you spit in my face, calling me insane?" The blade lifted into the air, curving slowly towards my neck. I tried to twitch away, but Electro's hand held me firm as the Reaper loomed. "Fine. You've made your decision. And I will respect it. You will die, Herman. But I promise, you will not come back as one of the living dead. Maybe, once your life has left your body, before your soul leaves this plane you'll have a change of heart. If so, I will be awaiting you with open arms to give you another chance. But for now, your life is forfeit, and all time after this is borrowed. Dillon."

"Yeah, boss?"

"It's time to go confront Osborn and feast upon the living. Your job is to remain here."

"Huh? But boss...ok, ok," Dillon backpedaled at the Reaper turned a red eye on him. "I got it. Someone needs to mind the store, and I'm the new guy. Want me to put Herman here out of his misery while you're gone?"

The Reaper's scythe hovered before my eyes for a moment. "No. Keep him alive. I want him to really ponder the finality of his decision. Torture him all you want, but ensure he remains with us in the land of the living. But above all else, keep an eye on Frank Castle. Make sure he doesn't try to interfere."

"Castle? Boss, we've bled him for the better part of a day. He's gotta be two quarts low by now."

"Which makes him all the more deadly." The Reaper looked down at me one more time. "Goodbye, Herman. Be seeing you." Death turned away from me, and walked towards the darkened pews. "Baron Mordo. Baroness Nerka. High Priest Talon. Baron Toomes. Baron Chondu. Baron Llan. It's time to begin the final rituals. Baron Mordo, is the Darkhold ready?"

"Yes, Master," a deep voice responded from the darkness.

"Good. Then let us adjourn to the appointed place and put forth our final plan. By this time tomorrow, New York will have fallen. And soon, the rest of the world."

I caught the shadowy figures rising from their pews before Electro spun me around. He leaned in close, his power still shooting through my nervous system. "Guess it's just you and me, Herman. It ain't so bad. All that chanting, that mystical mumbo-jumbo, the blood sacrifices...just ain't my thing. Any of it. But this..."

His hand squeezed my throat tightly, and an evil grin stretched across his scarred visage. "Just you and me, hanging out. And believe me, Herman, we're going to have...well, I'm gonna have...a lot of fun."


	32. Strange Attractions

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Oh, come on," Electro teased as my body had a spasm from the electricity being arced through my body. "That's not even enough wattage to power an Easy-Bake oven!"

Hey, having a steady amount of voltage pumped through your body is gonna hurt, no matter what the level. My back arced off the stone altar as Electro's hand on my exposed wrists acted like the fork in the light socket.

"Either your tolerance is getting lower, Herman, or I'm more powerful than I thought." After a few seconds, Dillon let go of my wrist. I collapsed on the altar, panting from the pain as the electricity grounded through the stone slab. I would have probably rolled off if my legs and right arm weren't bound with straps of leather. Over my heavy breathing, the steady sound of the Punisher's blood beat into my eardrums, the backbeat to the hell that was currently my life.

"Well, we'll just have to take a little break. Reaper wants you alive after all." Oh, thank Christ, I almost managed to whisper as Electro stepped away from me. The only measure of time I had was the sound of fading life dripping on the stone floor behind me. Minutes? Hours? I couldn't even see the stained glass windows, and any daylight (if dawn had come yet) pouring through was obscured by the backsplash of white from the floodlight shining on the Punisher's body. He may not have been creative, but the playbook of torture Dillon was reading from served its purpose. Short, high intensity bursts. Long, lower intensity currents. High shock then low shock then high shock again. And each time when it looked like I might finally have had to0 much, Electro would back right off.

His power...the electricity felt different this time out. As opposed to when we tangled in the bank last time...this was greasier. A bit more tainted. After he finished shocking me, what was left felt...just dirty. I felt violated somehow, like what Electro shot through me was lingering in my system, a reminder of just how helpless I was right now.

"I don't know about you, but I'm having a blast, Herman." Electro looked up at the Punisher hanging above us. "What about you, Castle? You must be having a good time. You're still hanging around." Chuckling at his own wit, Electro put his arms out to his sides, and screamed out at the empty cathedral. "HEY, MA! CHECK ME OUT! GUESS WHO'S FINALLY AMOUNTING TO SOMETHING!" As his parental issues echoed across the church, I saw the wide smile of dark joy on my former colleague's face. "Oh, and that dumb bitch said I'd never make it anywhere. I really wish I had kept her alive. But hey, who here doesn't have problems with their family? Well, not Herman, he doesn't have any now that Aleksei's dead and Mommy and Daddy kicked the bucket years ago. And I just can't imagine, for the life of me, the Punisher having a wife and kids. You're just not the marrying type, Castle."

I hurt. Really bad. This wasn't like the previous times, the nick, cuts, wear, tear, and all out barrage of abuse that I had taken over the past few times. This was torture, long, drawn out, and leaving very few marks. Short term agony vs. long term suffering. And from the look of glee on Electro's face, this was going to be a long night. And out there, somewhere, whatever grand design the Grim Reaper had was being put into motion...why the hell did I give a damn about that? I should be focusing on the here and now and the amps that my body's absorbing, not worrying about the rest of the world...but for some reason, my plan, if I ever came up with it, would involve beating the batteries out of Electro and heading to stop Eric Williams. How, I didn't know, but that was the entire point of coming up with a plan in the first place.

"This is something. The two people who got me killed, right here at my fingertips. I'd call it karmic justice." Electro calmly walked over to the wooden throne, coming to a stop just beside the drips of bloods falling through the air. I craned my neck back to see him staring up at the Punisher. My right hand began to trace the knot on my wrist as Electro called up to the vigilante. "Do you know what it's like to die, Castle? You love to just dish out death like it's going out of style, but have you ever been on the receiving end? I ain't talking about near death experiences here, I'm talking actually, final death." Ok, there's the first bind...where the hell did Electro learn to tie knots? In my mind, I tried to recreate the pattern. But my finger kept twitching from all the shock therapy. "Let me tell you Castle...it sucks. And if my boss hadn't told me to just let you bleed out, I'd blast you just so you'd know firsthand..."

BZZZZT!

It was only a joy buzzer's worth of juice, but it was enough to make me lose my concentration. "...and the same goes for you, Herman." Yellow boots squished through the edges of the sticky red pool before Electro dropped down into the wooden throne that Reaper had used earlier. "Pain just gets cut off. I was bleeding from my organs being shredded and bone chips being blown through my chest cavity, and then it just all went away. Then, your senses go. One minute everything's kind of fuzzy, and the next, it's just you and your thoughts. It's...it's not even pitch black like when your eyes are closed. There's nothing, no light, no sound, not even the taste of stale air. And you know what's happening. You know this is death. Not dying, but death. The Big Empty."

I hoped I had picked up where I had left off. Safes were my forte, but you learn a thing or two about proper knotwork after a few months of tying up rent-a-cops and bank tellers. And apparently Electro never bothered to study the craft. The knot was simple. A little pressure, if I could apply it, and a sliding motion would loosen up this binding.

"Ever been alone with your thoughts, Herman? I mean, truly alone, not even a sense of hope. Because I knew I was dead. And I knew what was coming next. Was I going to know I was back up and stumbling around? Was I going to want to eat human flesh, or was I going to fight against that urge...and end up losing?"

Ok, Herman, right there...it's like trying to hook a bra in the dark...my finger managed to find just a little space between the 'threads' of the knot. As Max kept talking, I started to work it just a little looser.

"There wasn't anything to focus on but rising panic. So that's all I could do. I was dead, Castle, and my fate was right there in front of me. To spend eternity walking around as a zombie. No one wants that. But hey, it's not like the little curse the Grim Reaper helped lay upon the world gives someone a choice. You know what those situations are like, Herman," he teased. "When you'll do anything to get away clean, make any bargain, cut any deal, praying to God after years of neglect to just bail your ass out just this one time."

I moaned a little louder than I felt, hopefully distracting Electro as he just went right along. Did I ever sound like that, monologing while I had Spider-Man on the ropes? No wonder webhead kept handing me my ass.

"Oh, save it, Herman. We haven't even gotten started. Besides, I know you want to be alive when the Punisher finally croaks." Electro's laugh held merriment as he taunted the Punisher. "Ain't that a bitch, Castle? You had three of New York City's most infamous villains dead-to-rights, and one of them is still alive and kicking, while the other two are still kicking."

I'll give the Punisher this. He never rose the bait. He didn't moan, groan, or complain. I knew he was still alive. His labored breathing could be heard between drips. Whether we was conserving his energy or just not willing to give Electro the satisfaction...probably both.

There. I had managed to slide my finger into the knot. Now, a couple of good twists for wiggle room...

"It's strange. People always kept saying I was an underachiever. That I had all this power, and all I was good for was getting the crap beaten out of me by Luke Cage and Spider-Man." He settled into the throne, a smug look on his face. "If they could see me now. When Reaper's voice spoke, the very sound of his words in that nothingness was my salvation. My eyes ripped open, and the pain...the blessed pain, Herman and Frank, telling me my ass was alive. No...was back in the land of the living. There he was, his scythe touching my shoulder, reaping my soul from the living dead and giving it right back to me."

His eyes narrowed as he stood up from the throne. The knot was loosening...almost there...

"No one should have to go through that experience. Dying, then coming back? To go from nothingness to the pain of death? I'll always have these gunshot wounds because of you two. Bleeding out for eternity. Because my ass is going to live forever. Reaper told me. And he showed me as well."

Go on, Max, keep talking, keep talking...got it! Immediately, I grabbed the strands of leather as they fell away from me. I had to keep the illusion up until...well, I came up with a new plan. But having two limbs down was better than three limbs down.

"Those guys in the vault were lucky. They would have suffocated if it wasn't for me opening the vault and letting them out. Of course, they're still dead, but they got to be players in something grander than a bank heist. You can't take someone away from Death without giving something back in return...at least that's what Reaper said. Hell, maybe he was just testing my loyalty. But he told me to kill them, Herman, and I did. And now here I am. So yeah, that's my unlife story. Back to the torture. Remember the torture, Herman?"

I wrapped the leather around my wrist tightly as he walked towards the altar, his boots leaving bloody footprints in his wake. "Alright, I think I'm gonna try something different this time. Can I use these candle stands to turn Herman Schultz into the bottom of a Jacob's Ladder? Probably not, but damn, I'm gonna have fun trying." His hands reached to grab me by the shoulders. "First, how about..."

My hand slipped out of the leather strap, and I hauled off across his face...

...I slapped him across his face...

...would you believe I patted him lightly on the cheek?

I didn't even do that. It was like a damsel in some old silent film wailing half-heartedly at the villain. "Oh," she'd cry, "get away from me you brute." Well, my hand brushed against Electro. I could feel the slight electricity between us at the contact before my hand fell away. He looked more surprised than hurt, putting his hand on his cheek where I had touched him. "What...what the hell was that, Herman? THAT was your bold move?"

I didn't even have a snarky response stored up. I splayed out on the altar, my arms limp as they fall to the ground. Electro was still holding his cheek, disbelief in his eyes. "Wow. Seriously, Herman, that's the best you can do? The great unflappable savoir of humanity, the Shocker, hits like a little girl. Come on, man...if you're gonna fight, put up a fight! You killed me! I'm going to kill you! Show a little spark!"

His hands grabbed me by the throat. Standing at my side, he yanked me into a sitting position. I could already feel the current flowing through my body as it started to convulse. "Herman...Herman!" My head had fallen forward onto my chest, but he put my chin up, opening my eyes. "Look, Herman. Open your eyes and look. You see that church out there? People would come here to pray every day for something. Salvation, material things, others, it didn't matter. At the very heart of religion in this city, your ass is going to croak. Now, I have no problems with you not being able to fight back, but if you're going to try, at LEAST make it interesting for me!"

My eyes jerked open from the shock as he pumped up the voltage. "You can scream if you want to, Herman...come on, give me something! A little reaction! You're about as boring as the Punisher! Just lying there, letting me do what I wanted!"

I was viewing the darkened cathedral through shakey-cam. Any minute now, the Cloverfield creature was going to come through that door and kill me. My body convulsed as Electro squeezed my throat a final time before the voltage died down, leaving me panting. A tempest brewed in Electro's eyes, complete with lightning and blood red seas. Electricity arced over his body as he stared daggers at me. I could see the rage in him, the anger. Yeah, maybe I had a role in his death, but screw it, he tried to kill me. And now he's trying to do it again and taking his sweet ass time about it.

"Give me something, Herman," he hissed at me through clenched teeth. "Give me something I can take from you before we kill you."

"Whoa! Hold up, Sparky, it's getting a little Brokeback up in here."

I never, ever, EVER in my life thought I'd be happy to hear that squeaky, sarcastic voice.

Electro's eyes whipped towards the darkened cathedral. "No...no! Not you, not now!"

"You know, mate, Dillon's a little too butch for a cowboy joke. This is more of a'Pulp Fiction' vibe."

And I never thought I'd hear that voice spoken in conjunction with the first one.

The sound of metal whipping through the air, and then something passed over my ankles. I felt the leather strap loosen, one immediately after another, as a silver glint whipped back into the darkness. Ever as I was freed, twin lines of webbing wrapped around Electro's wrists, and the Villain of Voltage got yanked forward, away from the altar. He landed chin first on the stone steps leading down from the altar to the pews, a small 'oof' escaping him.

I managed to remain upright as Dillon slapped the stone in frustration. "Fine then! I knew being left behind would pay off, because now I have a chance to finally kill my biggest nemesis once and for all!" He threw his arms into the air, globes of bright lightning swirling around his fists. "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

All the fixtures in Saint Patrick's snapped on at once, flooding the cathedral with light. Crouched on a pew, the red-and-blue-clad Spider-Man stared at Electro from behind white fabric. But it was the blue-and-purple man next to him, having just picked his weapon of choice out of mid-air after it freed me from my bindings, that was the bigger shocker of the two.

Boomerang flashed a snarky grin in Electro's direction. "Hey there, Max. You mind moving away from my friend there so we can settle this like men?"

The lightning bolt went for Spider-Man first. Even before it had left Electro's hand, the wall-crawler was leaping for another pew. Boomerang, out of the line of the fire, still dove to the side, diving between two rows to escape the blast.

"I don't know why you're bothering, Spider-Man. In the long run, it doesn't matter, even if you somehow manager to defeat me and save Herman!" Electro's body crackled as he charged up, leaping onto the first row of pews. "This world's coming to an end, and nobody's gonna be able to stop it!"

"Yeah, well, I couldn't live with myself if the world ended and you were running around like Mad Max, Max!" Spider-Man threw himself toward Electro. Just before Electro fired a blast at him, a line of webbing zipped into the air, and the wallcrawler swung himself above the bolt, flying over the attack before slamming into Electro with both feet. "Yow! Someone's all worked up," Spider-Man said as he flipped away from his foe. "That kick gave me quite a kick! Boomerang, go check on Herman!"

On the far end of the pew, Fred emerged. He ran at a low crouch, one wary eye on where Electro had pulled himself to his feet. As he threw a punch at Spider-Man that the hero easily dodged, Boomerang reached the altar. Even as he bobbed and weaved his way towards me, he still had that grin on his face. "Hey, Herman," Fred quipped as he reached me and threw my arm over one of his shoulders. "Never thought I'd see you and the Punisher hanging around."

"You think up that joke on your own," I wheezed out. "Just get me the hell off this altar..."

A loud bang echoed throughout the chamber, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Spider-Man go flying away. And Electro's voice boomed. "Oh, come on, Fred, you're not going to..."

Fred's free hand whipped out. A razorang sliced through the air towards Max, but Electro easily swung to the side, letting it harmlessly clatter of the stone wall behind him. Almost immediately, a second boomerang flew at Electro, but that one was easily dodged as well, sending a small spray of sparks as it bounced off one of the stone pillars. "Fred, why..."

The third one, Electro just raised his hand and blasted it out of mid-air. He was packing a hell of a charge now, upping his reflexes. "Seriously, Fred. I'm a walking dynamo and you're using Australian toys to fight me."

"Fight you? Mate, there is no way I'm that stupid. I'm just distracting you so the Virgin Mary can hit you upside the head."

One of Electro's eyebrows went up at the statement. "Really. You're invoking the Vir..."

That was all he got out before a small stone statue slammed into the back of his head. Electro dropped to his knees as the statue clunked to the ground, the serene carving of the Virgin Mary's face facing me as Boomerang hauled me off the altar.

"Mother Mary, forgive us sinners for using you for violence," Spider-Man said as he climbed over the pews. "But I'm thinking, right now up in Heaven, she's smiling and throwing me the horns at knocking..."

"Cretin!" A bolt of lightning slammed into Spider-Man's chest, sending him sprawling through the air. He crashed into a pew, splintering the back support as Electro climbed to his feet. "Do you really think you're dealing with the same old Maxwell Dillon. He's dead, and as you can see, obviously not buried! First, let me deal with the wall-crawler, and then, I'll turn my attentions to Herman and that annoying Boomerang..."

"Aw, crap," Fred said as he tried to leading my hobbling form towards the safety of a side vestibule. "He's talking to himself. Who the hell went and jump started Electro back from the dead?"

"You won't believe me..."

"At this point, mate, I'll believe anything. Rescue first, story second though." Electro's attention, by the sound, fury, and accompanying light show, was directed towards Spider-Man. Flashes and booms filled the air as we made it to the alcove that ran along the back of the church. "Here, Herman," Fred as he carefully leaned me against the wall. "Can you stand?"

"Barely," I said as I wedged my foot against the nearby support. "Give me a second...my nervous system feels like it's rebooting."

"Well, boot the damn thing in safe mode. We're getting the hell out of...bloody hell Jesus!" A stray bolt of lightning scorched the wall a few openings down from where we stood, and we could both hear Electro scream in frustration. "...we're getting the hell out of here, as soon as you can walk. I can sneak us out, webhead's being stupid enough to provide the distraction."

"No...no. My vibro-smashers," I said, shaking my head. "They're around here somewhere...we have to find them."

"Your...ok, Herman, the guy who goes back into the house for his gun, or his cell phone, or his puppy? He always croaks, mate! Come on, we can get your backup pair back at the warehouse..."

My thoughts were coming back into focus. "I can't...my spare pair...Chameleon...he's got them..."

"Ah, damn it, yeah. Yeah, I forgot. Remind me to tell you about that. Bastard tried to fire a blast, broke his arm by slamming it into a fire main. So, where the hell are they?"

"Wow. You're even more of a dim bulb now that you're dead, Electro!"

"Aaargh! Stand still, Spider-Man!" A series of crackling sounds filled the air, followed by a high pitched scream of pain. "Aha! Who's laughing now, wall-crawler!"

"I don't know...I woke up on the altar without them."

"Damn...you sure you can't live without them?" Even after being used as a closed circuit for the better part of who-the-hell-knows-how-long, I managed to muster up enough annoyance to shoot a glare in Boomerang's direction. He put up his hands, cursing under his breath. "Can't just make a new pair out of chicken wire and RC car parts...alright, fine. I'll look over there, you look over here."

"Yeah, sure," I said, waving a hand. The second I moved from this wall, I was going to slump to the ground. But if Fred found my weapons, I'll endure lying on the ground in a heap for a few embarrassing moments. Boomerang peeked out from behind the support beam. The flashes were coming from the front of the church, well away from us, but my friend still crouch-ran his way towards the opposite side.

My arms were responding now. I used them to support myself, one hand on the wall as a guide. Legs were still wobbly, but as long as I didn't get distracted and watched my footing, I could move. The blood slowly circulated through my body again as I started to search my side of the church. I swear, when all was said and done, my ass was taking a vacation.

A loud whistle split the air. I had barely begun my search when Fred got my attention. When I looked in his direction, my friend was already double-timing it back towards me, a gauntlet in each hand. "Damn," he told me as he came to a halt under the cover of the arches, "they're going at it tooth and nail down there."

He offered the vibro-smashers to me. I took one of them and immediately initialized it. Whoever had removed them from my hands had also turned them off. Probably Electro...but he hadn't pulled the charge out. "Alright," I said in small triumph as the power meter was comfortably in the green. I slid my vibro-smasher on, locking it into place. The hum of the power core was, to abuse a metaphor, music to my muscles. As Boomerang silently urged me on, the process repeated with the second one, also in the green and also working as intended.

"That's right, Spider-Man! You have nowhere to run! Years of putting me to shame are coming to an end tonight! You're lucky," Electro's voice sizzled through the air. "My boss didn't say a damn word about you. So I can kill you quickly and not worry about his wrath! Just hold still, and die!"

"Man, they're tooth and nail out there," Boomerang said as I flexed my fingers. I still felt about a second behind the rest of the world, but I had my weapons back. And, from banging my forearm lightly against one of the stone pillars, the contact plates in my suit still were functional. "Herman, is there a back door out of this place? Ain't ever been in here, but I'll tell you this right now, there's no way we're going out the way we came in."

I never considered the other option. By this point in that story, that's all I need to say.

"We're walking out the front door, Fred. After we kick Electro's ass."

Silence. Fred just stared at me, slackjawed, as I leaned out from behind the pillar. Electro, from what I saw, had Spider-Man boxed in at the far end of the church. The wall-crawler spun lines of webbing through the air, but each one was stopped in mid-air by a bolt of lightning. Spider-Man always had damn fast reflexes, quicker than even Speed Demon. But Electro...since he was dead, maybe his body could hold even more power and not have to worry about fatal burn out. His yellow glow was unearthly, flickering like the fire from a burning nuclear power plant. He had his fists out, holding lightning between his fingers. Spider-Man would flinch one way, and Electro would be there, cutting him off at the pass. "Nowhere to run, little spider," he taunted the hero. A bolt of lightning at his feet caused Spider-Man to leap into the air, but a bolt right above his head drove him right back down to the ground.

"Wow, who would have thought it'd take death to finally make Electro a match for me?" Even cornered like a rat, he still kept us the bravado I used to hate about Spider-Man. "I think your badassness is leaking out of your chest there though, Max..."

"Herman," Fred said, urging me silently, "come on. Let's just find the back door and blow this popstand. Let Max take care of Spider-Man. By the time he gets back to us, we can be across the river in Jersey!"

"Can't do that, Fred. We're gonna need Spider-Man. And if we don't stop Electro now," I told him, "then we're gonna run into him again. We got numbers on our side this time."

"Jesus Christ, Herman! Come on, the hero stuff...look what it's gotten you! You tortured and Aleksei dead! There comes a time, Herman, where you just go 'screw this' and walk away, and Herman, these boots were made for walkin'."

My fists clenched inside my gauntlets. "There ain't gonna be a world to walk away to, Fred. The Grim Reaper's behind all of this, Fred. Eric Williams has snapped, and he's working for a god. Fred, I am not making any of this up. I saw this god. I can't even say his NAME, that's how close I came to crapping my uniform. This isn't going to be 'cure the infection and go back to normal,' Fred." I took a deep breath, trying to find that steel for what was about to go down. "This is the end of the world. Galactus eating the Earth levels of apocalypse. And no, I'm not insane, although staring in the eyes of a god would probably shove me around the damn bend anyway!"

The sound of lightning and cries of anguish filled the silence between Fred and I. He was just staring at me, dumbfounded. "...the Grim Reaper? Really? " Boomerang's face went a little pale at the final realization. "Bugger's finally snapped, believes he's the Fourth Horseman?"

"I don't think it's belief, Fred. Look, I know this sounds insane, Fred..."

"Yeah, Herman, it does, and coming from anyone else but you, I'd call it utter bull." He looked back over his shoulder at where Electro was throwing lightning at the webhead, who had broken free and was now skittering across the front wall of St Patricks. "Christ...alright, alright, fine. You beat Electro one-on-one before, surely three-on-one is going to be a piece of cake. But when this is all done, you better sit down and explain to me why Aleksei's dead, why the Chameleon is running around looking like you, and why the hell Electro's walking around with bleeding bullet wounds!"

"Promise. First things first..."

"Right, right. Alright, I got a couple flashrangs in here, maybe we can blind him..."

"No, Fred. I need you to do something else."

The Australian laughed at my statement. "Of course, of course, Herman. You got the plan, what do you need me to do?"

"Cut down the Punisher."

The laughter died. Cue the shocked, dumbfounded look again. "What...cut him DOWN? Ok, Herman, now I KNOW you've lost it. He tried to kill you!"

"Yeah, well, we'll deal with that later." I put my hand on Fred's shoulder, looking him in the ear as thunder boomed through the vestibule. "Fred, we need him. He may be a psychotic vigilante who tried to shoot me a few days ago, but if we're going to fight the Grim Reaper, we need a guy like him on our side."

"...madness. Madness. Alright. But," Fred said, jamming a finger at me, "if he kills me, when I come back to life, I'm going to make damn sure I bite you in the ass before someone offs me."

"I never knew you cared, Fred. Now go on, get him down." Mumbling, Fred trotted off, hugging the wall on his way back to where Frank Castle hung bleeding. How the bastard was still alive, I didn't know. But there's tough, there's Ford tough, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was Punisher tough. Unless the first thing he did was try to kill Fred once he was free, he could do nothing but come in handy. And...I couldn't leave a man to die to bleed to death.

Not now, anyway.

God, this past week's been weird. Understatement of the year, but still. New York..the world...had been through crisis after crisis after crisis before. Each and every time, the heroes pulled it back from the brink after getting the crap beat out of them. And each and every time, I had just gone about my merry way. The Hulk smashing up New York City? Hey, time to make an obscene profit selling supplies to accountants! Heroes going at it in the streets? That means no one's watching the BMW dealership! Nick Fury declaring war on Doctor Doom? Hell, Doom was hiring, and Doom always pays well. Taking advantage of a situation without putting my ass in the way of major harm, that's me. Or it was me. Because...this time, something had been different. I'll never be able to put my finger on it, though looking back...this conflict hit at the street level. Every human on the planet, no matter where they were, was in danger. And unlike an alien in the sky, I could have done something about it this time. And I did. And as you've read, I got my ass beat pillar to post from the damn get-go. And I didn't quit. I kept coming back for more even when every nerve in my body and every friend I had told me "you've done enough, just stay down." Spider-Man never stayed down. Ms. Marvel never stayed down. Captain freakin' America never stayed down.

Rhino never stayed down.

Because Aleksei was a damn hero. I don't care what anyone else says. This past week, he earned that title. And damn it, so did I.

Herman Schultz. The Shocker. Hero

Wow. This is what self-confidence feels like.

I strode out from under the arches, pulling my mask back on and locking it into place. I knew this stride. I had come close to it time and time before. I thought I had it, but I didn't. But when I saw someone else with this stride, I knew, in my subconscious, someone was going to get their ass kicked. Well, for once, that someone isn't going to be me. It's going to be the undead human dynamo at the other end of the church.

He was staring into the rafters, trying to track Spider-Man. I walked to the edge of the vestibule, my hands at my sides, thumbs on the triggers of my vibro-smashers. I should have just gotten the drop on him. But screw that. I wanted him to know what was going to happen.

"ELECTRO!"

Electro stopped. His neck slowly craned down. The yellow aura of electricity surrounded him, ionizing the air. When he saw me, standing alone at the end of the aisle, his face took on a predatory grin. "Herman. Finally come out to play."

"Yeah, Max. You and me, round 2." I raised one of my hands, pointing at the Villain of Voltage. "And this time, I'm going to beat the living dead out of you."

I charged at him. Sprinting down the aisle, full-tilt, one arm cocked back, ready to knock his ass out with a blast-assisted jab. I could only imagine how cool I looked, running all out through the empty church...

Electro didn't see it that way though. He simply raised his hand and blasted me in the chest with a bolt of lightning. I stopped dead in my tracks...the upper half of me did, at least. My legs kept going, swinging out from under me. I was perfectly airborne for a moment before slamming onto the carpeted floor back-first.

"Ok," I thought as I stared up at the rafters, "that didn't go according to plan."

"Tsk tsk," Electro said. "That was supposed to be your big entrance, huh?" Both hands lashed out at me, and I barely managed to roll away from the twin blasts that emanated from the Villain of Voltage, squirming under a pew as his attack scorched the carpeting. Scrambling to my feet in the confined space, I spun around, firing off two level-threes at Electro. Both blasts caught him in the face, staggering him as he put his hands up in defense. I held my thumbs down, watching the power gauge slowly drop as the air exploded around him.

Blindly, Electro whipped a lightning bolt in my direction. Now, I need to clarify something here, because I see the guy in the back, with the Masters from MIT, going "hold on, hold on, you're dodging LIGHTNING? Which, you know, moves at the speed of light? Mr. Schultz, I find this story highly unlikely and increasingly unplausable."

First off, unplausable isn't a word. I ain't an English major and I know that much. And second, all that power Electro was generating may have lit up a small upstate town, the bastard was telegraphing his moves. A gesture with his hand, a sudden flare up in his electrical field...it was the only thing that let me know when he was going to strike. And it wasn't like I was casually sidestepping a bolt of lightning. It was more along the lines of dodging out of the way before my conscious mind screamed "HOLYCRAPINCOMINGLIGHTNING!"

It didn't matter, because the bolt sailed past me. Boldly, I stepped out of the row of pews, still letting off vibration after vibration, keeping them on a narrow band directly at his face. I wanted to open big, to just level five his face right off, but power was a concern. I sacrificed power for accuracy, punching him from a distance. Each step closer meant more power over a tighter area. He was growling, standing in place, trying to ward off my shots, waving his arms in a futile attempt to knock them away. I smiled under my mask as I closed to within ten feet, feet planted in the aisle, firing from point blank range, just pouring the vibrations into him...

Slowly, he stopped fighting back. Even as I kept attacking, he just put his arms down, and straightened up. My shots exploded the air around him, but he put his hands on his hips, and smirked at me. "Herman, Herman, Herman," Electro taunted me as he shrugged my attacks off." Really? You're not even tickling me with those attacks. You can't bring that AAA battery stuff against me anymore."

Crap. If...

No, Herman. Don't doubt yourself.

"Yeah, Electro. You're right." My left glove fired first, this one a level four aimed right at his face. Almost casually, Electro seemed to swat the blast away, his hand moving with superhuman reflexes. A second blast came from my vibro-smasher, a ball of exploding, vibrating air. This one, he simply seemed to "catch," the ionized air around his lightning-clad hand somehow counteracting the attack right in front of his nose. Dandy and fine by me, because that meant he missed the blast from my right gloved. Aimed directly at the metal ceiling fixture over his head.

A taunt was coming, but the poor sucker didn't even get a chance to get it out, as the chandelier that had been suspended from the ceiling crashed on top of him. That had to be a ton of ornate metal and carved stone slamming down on Electro. He didn't even notice until the chandelier impacted his skull, sending him down to the floor. The cable came next, followed by a large piece of masonry that had supported the fixture for years crashing down around him. The loud boom felt like God himself was shaking his finger at me for destroying this holy landmark, but He hadn't struck me down with a bolt of lightning yet. And Dillon had.

As the dust and debris settled around the fallen Electro, I did the appropriate thing. I lowered my hands, and found myself striking a casually heroic pose over the pile of stone and metal. "And the name's not Herman, Electro. It's Shocker."

"Jeez. Looks like you took a level in bad-ass, He...Shocker."

Spider-Man descended from the ceiling, hanging upside down by a line of webbing. "Nice job taking Electro down. But how do you know..."

Two of my level-four blasts shook the debris. A piece of stone fell off the pile, cracking into several pieces on the floor, as I lowered my fists and turned to Spider-Man, raising a cocky eyebrow under my mask, before realizing I was wearing a mask and he couldn't see it anyway.

"...he's not just playing possum. Alright, you took a page out of Ms Marvel's book there. Well played."

"Well, I had to do something...and where the hell were you, Spidey? Just hanging out on the ceiling? I could have used a hand."

He gave an upside-down shrug. "You looked so happy doing that power run from the altar, I just didn't have the heart to stop you. Besides, you had things under control, and I didn't want to mess up your vibe. Although...why didn't you just blast the hell out of him? You were lobbing softballs at him. You've cracked me harder than that."

"Yeah...but I like Electro."

"...don't quit your day job, Shocker. Leave the schtick to the professionals and the mercenaries."

The pile of rubble wasn't moving as I spoke. "I can level three all day long, but anything higher and I gotta start rationing my shots. I save the big stuff for when I'm outgunned. Remember our little tussle in the subway last year? That was the big stuff."

"I've never seen you run out of juice when we've gone at it," Spider-Man countered.

"Yeah...and how many times have you run out of webbing?"

"Point."

I turned and looked over my shoulder. "Yo, Fred. How's it coming?"

Behind us, Fred was floating in mid-air, his rocket boots keeping him airborne. "It's coming, it's coming." One of the Punisher's arms, I could tell, was undone, because it hung limp over the side of the cross. "He's barely moving, though. Bastard lost a lot of blood. He's gonna need a doctor, bloody stat."

"Boomerang helping the Punisher. Oh my giddy aunt," Spider-Man mused.

"Yeah, the world turned upside down. You go help Boomerang, I'll keep an..."

Suddenly, Spider-Man's arms were around me. I left the ground, shooting for the ceiling, my face at his crotch. Absolutely lovely, but a lot better than being where I had been. The ornate chandelier skittered down the aisleway, scraping across the stone as it bounced through the now-thankfully-empty-of-Shocker space. I had to crane my neck and look over my shoulder to see Electro brushing the dust off his shoulder. A thin line of blood ran down from the top of his bald skull, caking some of the dust that had fallen onto him. He looked up at us, his fists clenched as small tempests formed around them. "You have no idea how pathetic the two of you look right now. You'll have to drop a whole church on me to even have a prayer of beating me, Shocker."

"Wow. The world comes to an end and apparently everyone's self-esteem problem go bye-bye. Heck, all the Sentry needed was a zombie apocalypse to clear up his issues. Why should I have thought different with you, Max?" Spider-Man had hit the ceiling now, crouched, and holding me with one arm at his side. "Let me guess. You had a lovely talk with Moonstone and it cleared up all of your mommy issues?"

Even from up here, high above the church, I could see the lightning in Electro's eyes. "Why the hell did you have to make a 'your mom' joke, you idiot," I muttered just before a storm erupted from his body. A huge cloud of electricity filled the air between us, racing towards Spider-Man and myself. Immediately, Spider-Man did the smart thing, and let go of the ceiling. We shot towards the floor, and for a split second, the thought of impact filled my mind until the hammock of webbing appeared below us, anchored to the floor on one end and the wall on the other. Upon impact, the webhead let me go, and harmlessly bounced off the makeshift trampoline, landing with perfect grace on a nearby pew.

Myself? Shoulder first on the stone floor. "Ow." I attempted to stand back up, but the wooden pew being thrown at me hindered that plan. I covered my head as the hand-crafted, well-tended pew shattered against the wall, splinters raining down on me. As I looked up, Electro was already leaping through the air with an electricity-assisted jump. By the time I got my hands up to blast him out of mid-air, he had tackled me into the stone wall, sending a jolt of electricity through my body. "We've done this song and dance before, Herman," Electro said, his body trying to jam me against the stone as he reached for my vibro-smashers. "I grab your gloves, drain..."

I got an elbow up and drove it into his face. It was like sticking my arm into an open streetlight socket, and yanking my arm away on reflex didn't allow me a follow-through. But it gave me room to spin around and put my gauntlets right under his chin: two level threes right to the jaw from literally point blank range. If Rocky Marciano had done steroids, one of his uppercuts would have looked something like this. Electro's head snapped back right before his body went airborne, going almost straight up into the air at the impact. The hang time was enough for Spider-Man to land a side-kick square on Electro's jaw, changing his direction from "straight up" to "violently sideways." Electro crashed into a nearby pew and fell behind it, disappearing from our sight for a moment.

"He's stronger, and he's packing a lot more juice," Spider-Man proclaimed as he landed from his attack. "Whatever the hell happened to him, it's made him a tough bastard."

"Death will do that to a guy. Listen," I said, cutting off any questions, "we're running out of time. Whatever the Grim Reaper has planned, it's going to go down soon. We can't waste time duking it out with Dillon. We gotta drop him, quick."

"The Grim...Eric Williams? He's the one behind all of this?"

"No...but he's the Prophet. It's the best way to put it, really."

That was Electro's voice, and it wasn't coming from where he had landed. It was still coming from inside the church, but...the source couldn't be placed. I stepped away from the wall, my gloves at the ready. The hackles on my neck stood up as I whipped my head around, searching for the source of Electro's speech.

"I'm sure...Herman...will fill you in on everything, but just know that it's already too late. The Grim Reaper knows you're here, but he's calling me away. There are other power lines out there. I can see them now...mystical energy flowing towards the center of the city. It's started, and there's nothing you, Spider-Man, or anyone else can do about it. End of the world...and I'm gonna be the one laughing as your corpses shamble about. See you in Central Park, if you got the guts."

Suddenly, his green-and-yellow form leapt into the air, near the front of the church. Moving so fast that he was a blur to my eyes, he raced out the door into the New York night. "Damn it," I cursed. "Should we go after him?"

"We know where he's going. If he's stupid enough to go to Central Park, where the Avengers are waiting for him? Yeah, even the new and improved Electro's gonna get his butt handed to him by Iron Man. Besides, YOU owe me an explanation. You told me Electro was dead. And what does the Grim Reaper have to do with all of this?"

"You are out of the damn loop, aren't you?" I looked down at the far end of the church, where Boomerang was still untying the Punisher. "Help Fred get the Punisher down, and I'll fill everyone in before we head out. And for God's sake, make sure the Punisher doesn't try to kill Fred."

"Yeah, give me the impossible task," Spider-Man said before shooting a line of webbing and swinging away. I followed, walking down the center aisle towards the altar. Spider-Man swung up beside the inverted cross, and I could hear the whispered arguing between himself and Boomerang flare up almost immediately. But as they bickered, they were untying the thick wires that had bounded the Punisher to the large piece of wood. By the time I reached the altar, the two of them were carefully lowering him to the ground. His head was on his chest, and his arms hung limp at his sides. "Careful...careful..." I could hear Spider-Man say as they gently eased him forward, putting him on the ground well away from the pool of his own blood that stained the vestibule floor. "I got you, Castle," I heard Spider-Man say.

Boomerang stayed well back as Spider-Man helped Castle limp over to the altar. I was waiting for them there, and in my hand was the goblet I had drank from earlier. Boomerang gave me a quizzical eye as I filled it with a little bit of communion wine. As Spider-Man sat the Punisher against the altar to let him rest, I offered him the goblet. "Here, Castle. Take a..."

The man had been hanging upside down for more than a day. A large puddle of his blood covered the rear of St Patrick's Cathedral. But when his eyes locked with him, I saw the furthest thing from a defeated man. Anger still burned, smoldering like a mine fire deep within the reaches of the Punisher's soul.

"...sip," I said, finishing my sentence. I tried to lift the goblet to his lips, but, with a grunt, he took the goblet himself. He tilted the red liquid into his mouth, and after swallowing, he handed the cup back to me, and uttered one word.

"More."

And damn right, I gave him more. Any thoughts I had about being a damn bad-ass were quickly diminishing standing next to the Punisher. I gave him just a little more wine this time, but when I went for a third refill, he shook his head before I started to pour.

"Ok, Herman," I heard Spider-Man say as I turned to put the goblet down, "would you fill us in on..."

"HE'S GOT A KNIFE," Boomerang's voice bellowed.

As I whipped around, I caught sight of the hunting knife clutched in the Punisher's hand. The vigilante lunged towards me, bringing the knife down at me before I could get my gloves up in defense...

The webbing attached to the blade and yanked it away just before impact. The Punisher slammed into me lightly, pushing me backwards a bit. His body was limp, falling against mine, like he had put everything into what he had hoped was a killing stroke. After a moment or two of shock, anger rose up, and I shoved the Punisher back into the altar. "The hell, Castle? I just helped save your life!"

"That's supposed to make up for a lifetime of crime. You're still scum, Schultz." He managed to cram so much malice into a whisper, I took a step backwards.

"Told you, mate. The Punisher's too damn stupid to work with anyone. And he killed Stilt-Man, for Christ's sake, the most harmless criminal on the planet," Boomerang chimed in. "Seriously, we should off him right now and just spare everyone the grief." One hand went to a razorang hanging from his belt.

"You're more than welcome to try, Myers," the Punisher growled.

"Alright, everyone, KNOCK IT OFF!" Spider-Man flung the blade away. It clattered somewhere among the pews as he pointed a finger at Boomerang. "You! Can you calm your murderous tendencies for just five minutes! And the same goes for you, Castle! There's much bigger fish to fry here, and Shocker is the only one who can explain what the heck is going on! So, seriously, Herman, you can start with telling us why Electro, who you said the Punisher shot and killed, was walking around and talking like he was still alive?"

"You're probably going to want to break out the wine again for this," I groused, still staring at the Punisher. "Electro is dead. You saw him, you saw the bullet wounds. The Grim Reaper apparently brought him back to life. He's the guy behind the whole zombie mess...I know. He told me himself. And Castle can back me up on this."

After a few seconds, Castle nodded. "I overheard the whole thing. Williams is nuts, but apparently he's working for some kind of mystical being."

"Great..." Boomerang rubbed at his face. "So it IS the Book of bloody Revelations."

"Mystical being...well that narrows it down. Either of you wouldn't happen to have a name, would you," Spider-Man asked.

The Punisher shook his head, but I spoke up. "I know it. I met the guy. I saw him with my own eyes. Hell, I don't even want to say the guy's NAME, Spider-Man. It'll draw his attention."

"Shocker, we gotta know what we're dealing with here. Besides, if you talked to the guy, he already knows who you are."

Webhead had a point. "Alright, alright. Heck, we're still in a church, maybe it'll static it up." Not likely. I took a deep breath before saying his name in a low voice. "Dormammu. That was its name."

I couldn't see his face under the mask, but by the way Spider-Man's shoulders slumped at the sound of that name, his next sentence wasn't unexpected at all.

"Oh, crap."

"That bad?" Boomerang asked.

"That bad, Boomerang. Let me put it this way...the Fantastic Four have Galactus. The Avengers have Ultron. Doctor Strange has...him. He's bad news. When he shows up, dimensions come to an end. I know...I've tangled with him once or twice."

"Great," Boomerang murmured. "Is there anyone in this damn world you haven't picked a fight with, wall-crawler?"

"Hey, I don't go looking for trouble. All you idiots keep crossing paths with me..." Spider-Man held up a hand to interrupt whatever Boomerang was going to say next. "Cram it, mate. You want to argue, we'll argue later. Herman, go on."

"Apparently," I said, "this guy showed Reaper a vision of the future where Norman Osborn is responsible for getting him killed, and then goes on to wreck the world. Reaper's looking to beat him to the punch by killing Osborn and going on to wreck the world his way...his boss' way. Which apparently means killing damn near everyone on the planet and leaving the rest for Reaper and his crew to rule over."

"Osborn." That was Boomerang, sighing loudly at the edge of the group. "Just so I can get a grasp of the 'how screwed we all are' scale, between the Grim Reaper, his boss, and Norman Osborn, where should I rank Norman?"

His statement triggered something I had been meaning to ask. "You mentioned Chameleon earlier..."

"Yeah, that bastard. Got of the damn helicopter acting all solemn and morose, and when I asked where Aleksei was, he told me that the Punisher showed up and killed him. I pretty much knew right there something was up."

"...I don't get it," I replied. "How was that a clue?"

Fred gave a small nod towards the Punisher. "You want to explain this one, or should I?"

The Punisher wiped his cracked lips with the back of his hand. "Systevich and I...had an agreement. He kept his nose clean, I didn't go after him."

THAT was news to me. I knew Aleksei had tangled with the Punisher before, but both times, the Punisher had seemed out for blood. "Wait...he kept his nose clean, and that was it?" The vigilante nodded...which just set me off. "And, what, all the stuff I did this past week didn't count as keeping my nose clean?"

I didn't like the angry look he shot at me, but screw him. "You tried to kill me, Schultz, by leaving me to those ghouls in Washington Square."

"Only because you were going to shoot me in the fountain! And you tried to shoot me in the bank! And you tried to stab me! TWICE!"

"ANYWAY," Boomerang's voice cut through our argument. "If I can finish this story, I figured out something was up, so I tried to track down someone to talk to, like Ms. Marvel or Hank Pym. Instead, I run into Spider-Man..."

"Love you too, Boomerang." Spider-Man motioned to my friend with a gloved thumb. "Fred here tells me something is up...and since Norman Osborn's involved, that makes me triple-suspicious. When we confronted Chameleon, it took me threatening him for the poor schmuck to try to fire one of your gloves. The broken radius bone in his forearm was the final piece of evidence. Poor bastard didn't know how to handle the recoil."

"We refused to get him medical attention until he told us everything," Boomerang added. "Even then, it took a little...convincing on my part to get him to confess. He told us how Osborn killed Aleksei and left you to die. After we handed him over to SHIELD, Fury told Spider-Man to go looking for you."

"And Fred here...he insisted on coming along," Spider-Man added.

"Don't read anything into it," Boomerang quickly added. "I just wanted to make sure the wall-crawler here didn't try anything fishy."

I had to give Boomerang credit...and Spider-Man. "Nice job, you two. So how the hell did you track me down?"

Spider-Man scratched at the back of his head as Boomerang answered. "Remember when you ran into Spider-Man outside the bank? Bastard stuck a tracer in your uniform so him and his spandex-buddies could keep track of you."

I did one of those annoyed nods. "Of course. Once again, Norman Osborn gets a free pass to run around the damn Helicarrier and I get bagged and tagged like a wild animal..."

"Trust but verify, Schultz. And besides," Spider-Man said with that smarmy edge of us, "if I hadn't stuck a spider signal on you, Electro would still be treating you like a spool of copper wire." Again, Spider-Man had a point, and I nodded, conceding the point to him. I still didn't like it, but whatever. "And while we're on the topic of Electro...he's working for the Grim Reaper?"

"So's Toomes," Castle said, sitting up straight now against the altar. "And Mordo..."

"Yeah. Wherever Dormammu goes..." I winced at Spider-Man's use of his name. "...Mordo ain't too far behind."

"He's not alone. He's got Black Talon," Punisher added, "Chondu, Llan, and Nekra. And something called the Darkhold. That's what Williams was waiting for, the last piece of the puzzle. He left here with all of them to head to Central Park and start whatever his grand plan is about two hours ago."

"Everything was fine when we left," Spider-Man said. "Doctor Strange was getting ready to open up the portal and get all the civilians moving. So if the Reaper's put his plan in motion, we probably still have time to stop it. But we gotta hurry, like right now."

"Yeah, let's stop the damn bickering and get a move on," I proclaimed. "Castle, you ok to walk?"

The Punisher and Boomerang both blinked at my question. Castle recovered first. "You're concerned? I just tried to kill you about a minute ago."

"Personally, I'm pretty damn pissed about it, but I'm willing to put it to the side for now. The end of the world and thousands of civilians up in Central Park kind of takes precedent at the moment. I'm not the kind to hold grudges..."

(Pause here for reader laughter)

"...so I'll set it aside if you will."

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. The look on the Punisher's face said it all. Here was a guy who dealt in nothing but absolutes. Good was good, evil was evil, and shades of gray were just lighter mixes of black. For a second, I was jealous of the Punisher...it must have been so liberating to be able to see the world in such a simple way.

"How about you just take it under advisement for a while, Castle?" Spider-Man stepped between me and the vigilante, taking the full brunt of Castle's stare. "Shocker's right. We need your help, but damn it, I'm going to risk my street cred and vouch for Shocker on this one. You want to go after him again...wait until we've stopped the Grim Reaper and whatever plan Osborn's cooked up. They're the A-list problem right now, not Herman."

"I think I'm almost offended," I said.

"Hey, Herman, if it's any consolation...right now, you're a VERY solid B-list, B-plus-list even. You're one good 'take over the world' plan from making the A-list."

"How the hell can you make jokes at a time like this, Spider-Man," the Punisher growled.

"Um...have you MET me, Castle?" Spider-Man waved a hand. "Never mind. Less time bickering, more time moving. Get ready to go, I'm gonna call this one in." He turned away, pulling something out of his costume. He flipped it open, revealing a communications device. "Spider-Man to Colonel Fury, come in..."

"Mate...this is finally insane." Boomerang stepped close to me, whispering in a low voice. "The living dead's crazy. Working with superheroes is loony. Electro coming back from the dead's over-the-top. And now, teaming up with Spider-Man and the Punisher to stop the Grim Reaper and some god from taking over the world?" He stuck his thumb in his mouth and popped his cheek. "That's the sound of a self-induced lobotomy, because my brain just can't handle all this."

"Oh, and you think I'm all daisies and lollipops, Fred? I don't know how the hell I haven't had a nervous breakdown at this point. I just talked to a GOD, Fred, and I can barely talk to a female member of the Serpent Society!"

"That's my point, Herman. This is just too damn much for me. Superheroes and supervillains, I can deal, but you add magic and mystical mumbo jumbo to the mix? Yank me from the game and send in a relief pitcher, because my mother didn't raise a bloody idiot." He put up his hand and took a step back. "I'm out. This is the damn end of the line for me, Herman."

"Fred...you're absolutely right." That got Fred's attention. I knew what he was expecting, more point-and-counterpoint like we had always used when arguing. So...hey, I fight dirty, why not argue the same way? "This is way over both our heads, man. Seriously, what, Doctor Doom I think is where my upper level of villainy ends. Beyond that, that's Avengers-level fighting, and they can deal with it. Taking on gods is WAY above our pay grades."

"Damn right..."

"That's why I'm staying." Boomerang let out a resigned sigh as I spoke. "Fred, they need everyone. This is the big one, freakin' D-Day here. It's our damn civic duty..."

"Hah! You didn't even VOTE in the last election, Herman!"

"...ok, if that's your counterargument..."

"Herman, it's a god, like you said. You know what that means? Game over. He wins, you lose..."

I had it. Just absolutely had it. "You coward, Fred. You damn coward."

His eyes narrowed, like a pitcher staring down a batter with a full count. "Don't you dare say that, Herman. I ain't no coward. I just know when I'm licked, and from what it sounds like, humanity's licked."

"And you won't even stand and fight for it? You're a human, Fred. You don't think the end of the damn world doesn't affect you?"

"No, Herman, it doesn't. I've kept my head down, like YOU always did. Before this whole mess started, I would have thought you would have done exactly what I did. Low profile, hide out, wait it out. But no, you had to go play hero and get a swelled head in the process and now all that ego's pushing on your brain! You're the one who waved his hands going 'look at me, look at me, I'm the damn Shocker!' Well, now the Grim Reaper knows who you are, and when you show up in Central Park, you're gonna have a big bullseye plastered on your chest...oh, and let's not forget, Norman Osborn also has it out for you, so when you show up, he's gonna want to kill you again! Rock, hard place, and your ass is stepping right into the middle!"

"You don't think I know that! Fred, this is bigger than that. And a lot more personal. The Grim Reaper tried to get me killed. Osborn tried to kill me. He killed Aleksei. I saw my best friend die, right in front of me, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it. You don't want to take a swing as Osborn for that? Aleksei was your friend too."

"Yeah, he was...and he's dead. And I don't want to watch another friend die right in front of me. You want to have a nice life, what's left of it, go ahead. My ass is going down to Aruba, and..."

"Myers."

Both of us stopped, and slowly turned. Standing beside us, having lurched up without either of us noticing, the Punisher's gaze was fixed on Boomerang. One look from the vigilante, and Fred shut right the hell up. "Myers, if you run, I will find you. If you think about running, I will find you. If you stray outside of a one-block radius from Central Park, I will find you. It doesn't matter if it's seven minutes or seven years, if you don't come with us to Central Park, I will hunt you down, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Some people make threats. The Punisher states fact. Fred went pale white at the final words of the Punisher, and almost forgot to nod. "Al...alright, mate. I got it."

The Punisher's nod were barely noticeable, but you could see the relief on Fred's face as Castle turned to look at me. "Just because we're doing this, don't think we're friends. You're still scum, Schultz, and if you put one foot wrong, I don't care how many friends you made in high places, I'll put you down right then and there."

"...got it," I managed to get out after a moment.

Thank God for Spider-Man, who chose that moment to come back over. "Problem. I was trying to get through to Nick Fury, but we got cut off by a long burst of static."

"Electro," both Castle and I said at the same time.

"Yeah," Spider-Man agreed, "jamming cell phones is a common trick for him. But jamming encrypted SHIELD communications is too new for comfort. We roll, now. You need a hand, Castle?"

The Punisher waved him off. "Just blood loss. I've had worse."

I so wanted to ask 'when,' but I refrained. "Alright. Let's get the hell out of this church."


	33. Hammer to Fall

"That's...a lot of zombies," I murmured.

"Aye," Boomerang said in agreement.

The edges of Central Park were lined with floodlights, illuminating the entire length of Fifth Avenue, which was packed with the living dead. We stood just behind the Fifth Avenue Subway station, well out of sight, but not a single zombie was glancing in our direction. Their entire focus, from the General Motors Building all the way up to Victorian Gardens, was on the barricades that ran the entire length of the thoroughfare. I had seen them in my dream a few nights ago. Thin, white barricades, the height of three men, that weighed like they were made out of plastic and could absorb as much force as a steel plate, they were the brainchild of the smartest man on the planet; Reed Richards. They were meant to be used as easily deployable crowd control, able to be set up at nearly a moment's notice. For riots, or massive public events, they were incredibly effective. Against a long row of a little more than a quarter of all the zombies in New York City, I don't think they were meant to wobble like that.

They crowded the sidewalk and about half the street, clawing at the barrier or pushing to get close to it. When the four of us had stepped outside of St Patrick's, the air had been filled with their moaning, a cacophony that echoed over all of Midtown, and I'm sure beyond. We hadn't seen a single zombie on our run from Rockefeller Center to this point, and now, we knew why. They were all here.

"This has to be the Reaper's doing," I said in a quiet voice. They probably couldn't hear us over their own moaning, but why take that chance? "Get all the zombies in one place and just hope they overwhelm the barricade at some point."

"No. They've been doing that since Osborn set up his rescue station. And look how spread out they are. He's laying siege to the whole Park." The Punisher had kept right up with us, never complaining, never asking us to slow down. It turns out someone had made a small cut behind his ear, just deep enough to let the blood flow freely. A little bit of rubber cement had sealed it right up, and since then, he had been the scary vigilante I knew and loathed. "There's gotta be more to it. Or else he wouldn't have been waiting for Baron Mordo to get the Darkhold."

"What does it do, this Darkhold," Fred asked.

"I don't know, Myers. It's probably some kind of magical WMD," the Punisher replied.

"In any case, we have to get inside and let Doctor Strange and Nick Fury know that the Grim Reaper's up to something. I'll grab the Punisher. Boomerang, you grab Shocker. Once we're over the walls, SHIELD's set up near the Reservoir..."

"No." Leave it to the damn Punisher to bring a logical, get-our-asses-relatively-safe plan to a screeching halt with one word. "You three get in there and warn Fury and Strange."

"Oh really," Boomerang said sarcastically. "And what the hell are you going to do, Punisher, shoot all the zombies for making a public disturbance?"

"Yeah, Myers. I guess you're not as dumb as you look." Punisher pointed up Fifth Avenue. "I got a cache of weapons and supplies up near the Arsenal on 66th. Since someone here took my knife, I'm pretty much useless."

"66th? That's six blocks. You know the second one of those zombies sees you, it's game over," I said. "You'll never make it by yourself."

"I'll be fine, Schultz. Your job is to get in there and stop the Reaper. Now, go on." The Punisher turned, and started across 60th street. He was moving, but now that he didn't have to keep up with us, his motions were a lot more deliberate.

"He can only handle two zombies, three max," Boomerang pointed out as the Punisher leaned on a parking meter for a moment. After a second, he shrugged. "But hey, if he's going to be an idiot, screw him. Come on, I'll carry Herman."

Boomerang was moving to grab me around the waist when I put a hand up. "You two go on. I'm gonna be his wingman."

With a sigh, my friend rubbed the bridge of his nose, like he was getting a headache. "Oh, bloody Christ, mate..."

"Fred, if you had a chance to bet that the Punisher could kill one hundred zombies in sixty seconds, you'd take it, right?"

"Well...yeah, but...if Castle wants to walk willingly into the Lion's Den, I'm not going to stop him. Hell, if matters weren't so pressing, I'd grab a beer and some popcorn to enjoy the bloody show."

"We need him. I know, I know, it's the guy who tried to kill me a bunch of times, but...I don't know, Fred. I really don't. But my gut's telling me to keep him safe, and damn it, my gut's gotten me this far."

Boomerang didn't try to change my mind at least. "Alright, at least let me go with you..."

"You'll only antagonize the man, Fred." Spider-Man motioned to the park across the street. "Herman, are you sure about this?"

"Not entirely...but hell, I've been lucky all week. Might as well see if the streak holds. Now, get in there." Before either one could respond, I was trotting across the street, towards where the Punisher was stumbling into an alleyway. I heard the whine of Fred's rocket boots igniting as I reached the end of the alley, barely audible over the sounds of the zombie horde.

There's a long list of really stupid stuff I've done. Fighting Spider-Man's on it a lot. Not banging Kelly Patterson in the tenth grade is on it. Calling the Gibbon an idiot is on it. And trying to kill the Trapster, especially in hindsight, is on it. Following the man who's tried to kill me three, technically four, has easily vaulted into the top ten. Here was a guy who was walking into certain death, a guy who had killed numerous villains, colleagues, and a few friends of mine, and had no convictions upon putting a bullet between my eyes. So why was I risking my life to make sure this guy lived? The firepower the Punisher had stocked away probably could arm a Third World nation, and I had watched him mow down a lot of zombies in Washington Square Park without breaking a sweat. All those bullets could only come in handy. And the grenades. And the Claymores. And the RPG's. You know he had to have them...

More than that, though. A year ago, Iron Man, Captain America, Reed Richards, Hank Pym, the Punisher, Ms. Marvel, the Sentry, and Spider-Man were at each other's throats over the Superhuman Registration Act. Now, though, in the face of mortal danger, they had all put their differences aside. And then, add that nearly the entire supervillain community has thrown its lot in with the heroes. Huh...the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, heroes and villains working together, and now mass hysteria with my deluded self trying to help the Punisher. Look, it boils down to this. Trust. Right now, Doctor Octopus is standing next to Hank Pym, Thunderball and Thor are making plans, and even Molecule Man and Reed Richards aren't killing each other. That has to stand for something, when the guy next to you has fought you tooth and nail for years, but knows when to put it aside when something bigger is at stake. They got it. Electro and the Vulture didn't. I was the one who apparently started this whole hero-villain massive team up in the first place...so I had my own example to live up to.

I spoke in a low, clear tone as I approached the Punisher, his hand on the brick wall of the alleyway for support and guidance. "Take your time, Castle. I got your back."

His head whipped around, causing me to freeze in place when I caught the look on his face. "Schultz, what are you doing?"

"Covering you. Now, keep going, we're on a bit of a time crunch here." I motioned with my gloves. "Two of us can get their faster than one of us if a ghoul pops up."

"I don't want your damn help, Schultz. Go play hero somewhere else."

"Look, you don't want my help. But you need it, Castle."

"No, I don't. Now, I have to watch my damn back for you trying to stab me in it."

"Who scares you more, Castle? Zombies or me?"

"Neither." But after a few seconds of staring, he lurched forward. "We're going to 66th, halfway between Madison and Fifth." I kept a good distance behind, my thumbs off the triggers, but my eyes scanning every nook and cranny. "There's a manhole cover in the street. My cache is down there, just underneath the Arsenal."

I wanted to ask him how the hell he was going to get a manhole cover off in his condition, but I kept my mouth shut. Don't poke the angry lion, Herman. "What do you have down there?"

"Rifles, submachine guns, bullets, grenades, and about ten pints of O Negative."

"Christ. Were you a Boy Scout when you were a kid?"

He didn't answer as we reached the end of the alleyway at 61st Street. I kept my mouth shut as we crept along the narrow path towards the towering buildings. The street was lit by the residual glow coming from the floodlights just inside Central Park, illuminating a scene right out of the "how to write an apocalypse" handbook. 5th Avenue and Madison had been cleared for the incoming flood of refugees, and in the process, the cross avenue we were darting across were free of wreckage. It was a tense experience, going from dark alleyways where the undead could be lurking in the shadows to darting across a well-lit street without any cover to conceal us if one of the zombies from Central Park happened to glance over its shoulder as we ran. And run we did. In the alleyway, the Punisher had leaned on the wall, stumbling with measured steps. Once we got to the end, though, I found myself having to almost to sprint to keep up with him. Anytime I tried to step in front of him in an attempt to take the lead, I was rewarded with a stern look as the vigilante pushed himself harder. I eventually hung back just so I didn't push him too hard. What the hell drove this guy? Being thrown through the air by Thor, captured by the Grim Reaper, trussed up and left to bleed out like a dead deer, suffering from blood loss that would have put anyone else into a damn coma, and this guy was still pushing himself to keep a faster pace than me. I wanted to ask him...but as I learned back in Washington Square, asking the Punisher questions isn't the wisest of moves.

The way I would have gone would have been back down to Madison Avenue, head up a few blocks, and turn down East 66th Street, which ended at the old New York Arsenal. But the Punisher headed right for a small park on the north side of 61st. I followed right behind him as we wove our way through the stone planters, stepping over a half-eaten body along the way. He took the lead, weaving us through small pathways, buildings under construction, and the lobby of a shopping galleria. That's where I was the most nervous. Shopping malls should never be empty. Every step I took, my metal boots clicking off of the granite floor, I expected a horde of zombies to come flooding out of the shops after us. We made it through the mall without a problem, though, coming out onto East 66th Street. Following the Punisher's lead, I crouched behind a panel truck, listening to him speak as I kept a wary eye on the mall's entrance. Just in case.

"There's a manhole about fifty meters from the end of the street," he said. "If you want to be useful, Schultz, you can do the heavy lifting and head down first. You still got night-vision in your mask?"

"Yeah..." I touched my mask, and the dark street became green-and-white for a moment. "Still works," I told him as I turned it back off.

He acknowledged via grunt, and turned to head out. I was following him before he suddenly spun back, motioning with a hand for me to come to a sudden stop. I immediately froze. "Wh..." That was all I got out before he slashed at the air with his hand to silence me. Carefully, the Punisher crouched down to the ground, his back flush against the panel truck. I kept an eye out behind us as, slowly, he eased his head out around the corner of the truck's rear bumper. After a few moments, he pulled back, and looked up at me. "Problem. There's someone standing near the manhole."

"Zombie?"

"Not quite. Take a look...carefully," he said, emphasizing the last word. I leaned over him, one hand on the truck for balance, and peered out. The...problem...in question was easily visible. At the end of the street, the horde still shoved and clawed, trying to get past the barricades into the park. Behind them, by maybe thirty yards, a pick-up truck was parked in the middle of the street, the only vehicle visible anywhere along this stretch of 66th. Standing in the bed of the pick-up, a figure raised his hands towards the horde, razors attached to the tips of the blue gloves he wore. He swayed slightly from side-to-side, his hands slowly moving in some sort of pattern. It was his outfit that gave his identity away, though. He called it "ceremonial robes of an ancient people." Everyone else called it "the chicken suit."

"Black Talon." I pulled back behind the panel truck, shaking my head. Last I had heard, the former voodoo priest had quit the black magic racket and was selling magically enhanced cocaine for the Hood's syndicate. Guess the Reaper's offer pulled him right back in. "I'd recognize that stupid costume of his anywhere."

"That truck's parked right in front of the manhole." The Punisher was leaning out again, studying the street. "There's no way we can sneak down there. Even if we closed the distance, he's going to hear you moving the cover off."

"Can't we just go to another manhole? There's plenty of sewer lines that feed into Central Park."

"The tunnel's sealed at both ends," he responded. "One entrance is in Central Park. The other's right there. ConEd decommissioned the tunnel back in the 80's and never got around to paving over the manholes."

"Hell, I could blow through any barricades ConEd put up in my sleep." I stuck my head out again, doing my best to minimize my sight profile. "Is he controlling all those zombies?"

"It's his MO. Nekra stole some rites from Black Talon and used them to bring the Grim Reaper back to life. Twice."

"How the hell did you know that, Punisher?"

"The same way I know you've been in psychoanalysis for the past two years for low-self esteem issues. Now, be quiet."

"How..."

"Quiet," he growled. The moaning of the zombies drowned out any other ambient sounds the abandoned city made as the Punisher studied the situation in front of him. I wanted to chime in with the fact that, hey, I had gloves that could blow through walls and that any barricade ConEd put up to seal a tunnel would have been constructed by bored union guys looking to finish the damn job and get out of the sewers as quickly as possible. No muss, no fuss, and avoiding any confrontation with a villain who raises the dead for a living.

Yeah...this is the Punisher. There's no way he'd pass up a chance to take a shot at a bad guy, especially a bad guy whose MO is directly tied to the impending apocalypse. And for once, I was right there with the Punisher's thought process. Spider-Man did it to the Sinister Six all the time. Isolate one member, beat him into submission, and the Sinister Six became the Sinister Five. Black Talon was part of the Reaper's crew, and if we could drop him, it could only be a good thing.

"We're going to take him out, Schultz." I nodded at the Punisher's statement, and he gave me the slightest nod in return. "You're going to be the distraction and give me time to get in position."

"Distraction...in other words, bait." Exposing myself completely and utterly on the street without any cover, waving my hands and yelling "hey, bad guy, here I am?" Hell, that's how I got involved in this whole situation a week ago. Why mess with success? I leaned out from behind the truck one last time. "You need him looking a certain way?"

"Not at me. Just hold his attention, Schultz. Don't try to be a hero."

"Who, me?" I slid around the Punisher, carefully easing my way out from behind the panel truck. The street was wide open, without a single wrecked car to provide me any sort of cover. Alright. I could crouch along, trying to get as close as I could before being noticed. Or...I could go on the belief that the moans of the zombies would cover any noise I made and I could just walk down the middle of the damn street. Hell, being brazen and brash would probably grab Black Talon's attention more than me trying to be sneaky.

I had to wonder what the Punisher was thinking as I just strode down the center of East 66th like an Old West gunfighter. Each step brought me closer to Black Talon, and to the horde of zombies that craved the flesh inside Central Park. No pressure, though. No fear. That was the weird part. Zombies in front of me, the Punisher behind me, Black Talon in my sights, and here it was. That power walk I mentioned earlier, the stuff that guys like Bullseye or Iron Man pulled off unconsciously. It was creeping into my stride, hands slightly out from my hips, eyes straight ahead, shoulders squared with Black Talon. My eyes moved from side-to-side, keeping an eye out for any stray zombies, as well as trying to catch a glimpse of the Punisher. No head movements, though, to try and see him. My focus was on Black Talon and him alone.

The comms in my head were still disabled. Trapster had done too good a job. But I still had the visual and audio enhancers. As I got closer, and the soul scraping groans of the zombies became more prevalent, I did my best to electronically wash out the sound. I had heard it enough during the past few days, and my nightmares could only take so much more audio input. As the moans were muted, I picked up a new sound, one that had been drowned out by the cries of the living dead. As I approached Black Talon, it became obvious that the voodoo priest was chanting. In French. If hours of late night bad B-movies on public access taught me anything, chanting in another language, mixed with the repeated hand gestures, was usually a sign of some kind of magic ritual. Magic rituals, especially tonight, are not good.

His head never turned as I reached the pick-up truck. I stood ten feet from the rear of the vehicle, point-blank range for my vibro-smashers. Black Talon must have been engrossed with the spell he was weaving...or I wasn't a threat to him. Well, if so, that was about to change for damn sure.

"Talon!"

That was my attempt "you're going to turn around and look at me" voice, like the kind Thor uses a lot. When he didn't glance back at me, I cleared my throat and added a little more bass to my voice. "Talon! Yeah, you on the back of the pick-up truck!"

Nothing.

Oh, come on. I raised my hand, and cuffed him across the back of his head with a level-one blast. "Yo, Talon! I'm talking to you!"

The chanting stopped. And the foreboding began as he slowly lowered his hands. "Well. Looks like Electro couldn't handle the job." He turned around, milking the moment for everything like the part-time cult leader he sometimes was. "And now, I get to finish you off. I'm sure the Grim Reaper will reward me for succeeding where Electro failed."

I tried. I really did. But let's be honest. Here was a guy who could raise the dead, talk to spirits, and worked with black magic on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure, if he had a sample of my hair, Black Talon could probably explode my heart like a baked potato. But dear God in Heaven (if he's paying attention), the man could NOT have picked a stupider costume, and I used to hang out with the Porcupine. A blue cape that flowed into long sleeves like a bird's wings, yellow boots that looked like claws, yellow gloves that looked like claws, and a red plume on his head. Now, add to it that his costume has no chest, and the guy looks like one of the Birds of War from the wrestling episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell I can take him seriously. The Grim Reaper looks scary. The Punisher has a skull right there on his chest. Black Talon has plumage. Even the Vulture didn't really have plumage.

Ok, ok, Herman, focus. Don't underestimate the bad guy. Do your job, keep him distracted.

(Oh, and here's another reason to be pissed at the Grim Reaper. I actually PRE-ORDERED a copy of the Christmas episode of "It's Always Sunny." A legitimate order with an actual credit card. I'm going to really be ticked if I miss out on it. I imagine a couple of people on the Internet, if they're still alive, are bitching "the end of the world better not interfere with the final season of 'Fringe!'")

"What can I say, Talon? Max tried, but he chickened out."

Aw, damn it, was that a chicken joke?

One eye was covered by a black eye patch. His other eye was a swirling ball of red, narrowing slightly at my joke. "Seriously? I always knew you were book smart, Shocker, but the chicken jokes have been done to death."

"I know, I know," I replied. "It's a fowl offense...damn it, ok, that one just slipped out, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. My mind's just fried...whoa, Talon, I didn't mean...this whole week's just been one big cock up."

I had Spider-Man Syndrome. One bad pun turned into a hurricane of them. The good news? I had Black Talon's full attention. Nothing gets a bad guy's attention like taunting him. The bad news? I had Black Talon's full attention. Nothing gets a bad guy's attention like taunting him.

"You have no idea what you are in for, Herman." The priest took one step forward, causing me to raise one of my gauntlets in response. "The rituals have begun. And once the witching hour hits, and everything's in conju...

*BLAM!*

The eye patch disintegrated as the back of Talon's head exploded. The rear window of the pick-up was splattered with brain matter mixed with a delightful garnish of red blood. His remaining eye didn't even have time to go wide with surprise as Talon's head rocked backwards for a moment, before his body fell forward, collapsing face-first in an unmoving heap in the truck's bed.

I knew what I'd see even as I turned around. The .44 Magnum smoked in the Punisher's hand as he walked up behind me. "Jesus, Castle! Warn a guy next time!"

"Element of surprise," he growled, peering into the back of the truck as Talon's unmoving body. "He didn't see it coming."

"Where the hell did you get that thing, anyway! Did you pull it out of your ass?"

"Stashed in a UPS box a few days ago, in case of emergencies." He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"In case of...what if some kid found it!"

"If a little kid is trying to squeeze into a mailbox, he's probably got bigger problems than finding a loaded gun. It might actually save his life."

The zombie horde didn't seem to notice a large caliber handgun firing behind them. A sound that was like ringing the dinner bell didn't pull any extra attention. "Well...as much as I disagree with you on gun safety..."

And I wasn't going to argue the fact that I had just seen the Punisher kill a guy in cold blood, right in front of me. That would be like arguing with Doctor Doom about his megalomania.

"...let's just get the hell underground."

The Punisher motioned to the manhole cover. "Get it open, Schultz. I'll cover the ugh."

Cover the 'ugh?' I was about to ask him what the hell an 'ugh' was when I saw him stumble forward a step or two away from the pick-up truck. The 'ugh' had come from the steel claws of the end of Black Talon's glove slashing the Punisher across the back. The vigilante spun around, letting me see the cuts in the Kevlar armor he wore stretching across his shoulder. Nothing deep, thankfully, but let's not forget that a dead man had slashed him in the first place.

"You shot me before, Castle, and the Grim Reaper made sure I got back up." Talon slithered from the back of the pick-up, swinging around to land on his feet as he jumped down to the pavement. The illumination from the floodlights shone through the hole behind his ruined eye patch, covering part of his face in shadow. "What makes you think this time would be any different?"

"I've got..."

*BLAM!*

"...more bullets."

*BLAM*

"And a bigger gun."

*BLAM* *BLAM*

The gunshots right next to my ear sounded like the fist of an angry god. Four bullets slammed into the muscular chest of Black Talon, blood spurting from each impact. And the bastard just stood there, doing nothing more than shaking slightly as each round hit home. The echo of the final gunshot was mixed in with the booming laughter that came, mockingly, from the voodoo priest. "A valiant try, Castle, but bullets don't..."

*BLAM*

Talon's head rocked backwards as the .44 roared for a final time. His remaining eye vanished under the hailstone of gunfire. His skull, already weakened from the first gunshot, exploded from the back, sending what bits of brain matter were left in his cranial cavity flying into the air. It was like staring into the Lincoln Tunnel, light shining through two bored holes. There was no chance in hell Black Talon had any reasoning capacity left, because he couldn't have had a brain left...

The laughter from the voodoo priest was impossible. He had no eyes. He had no brain. I could SEE Central Park behind him. But there he was, crossing his arms across the bullet wounds on his chest. "Destroying the brain won't work on me, Castle. I'm not one of the normal living dead. I'm something special. Something evolved."

"Schultz, get the manhole cover." The Punisher shoved the gun into one of his side holsters, and then threw himself at Black Talon. For a split second, I was stunned. He shouldn't be walking, he just emptied six bullets into a hardly-fazed Black Talon, and now he just barely ducked underneath a wicked swipe from the bad guy.

"SCHULTZ, THE DAMN COVER!"

Immediately, I dropped down to one knee. My fingers traced the edge of the cover where it was flush against the rest of the street, trying to find a notch to slip my hand underneath and get some leverage. The Punisher used a hand to parry one of Black Talon's punches...but then he stumbled back, wincing, as Talon lashed out with his clawed boot, raking Castle across the thigh.

Damn it. The manhole cover was too snug in place and my fingers couldn't fit. I needed some kind of prybar...or I could just blow the thing open. I made a fist, placing the thumb on the trigger of my weapon, and punched at the edge of the manhole as I fired.

"Crap!" I had to dodge out of the way as the round piece of metal flipped into the air. It sounded like a gunshot as it clanged off the pavement, clattering a few times before coming to a halt. Alright, I had done what the Punisher asked. Now all we had to do was get the hell away from Black Talon. This was going to be difficult, because right now, Black Talon was getting the upper hand. He had the Punisher on the defensive, swiping and picking away at the vigilante. And Castle wasn't in the "let me sucker you in" defensive mode; this was the "I need a miracle to get out of this" defensive mode. As soon as he parried or ducked a blow from Black Talon, another one was right there. He wasn't getting a chance to rest, to think.

"Talon's going to kill him," I mumbled.

With a shrill cry of triumph, Talon's foot slammed against the Punisher's ankle, sweeping the leg out from underneath the vigilante. The Punisher was trying to roll away even as he landed on the asphalt, but a swift kick from Black Talon to his ribs stopped that motion. Talon dropped to one knee, straddling Castle. He grabbed Castle's face with one hand, and yanked it off the ground. "You took both my eyes. Luckily, I don't need them anymore. You, though..." One talon slowly sliced up the side of Castle's cheek, barely avoiding breaking the skin. "...well, let's see if you can function with only one eye, Castle..."

"Hey, Talon!" I stood behind him, towering over where he was crouched. "You said you're a different kind of zombie, right?"

He half-turned to 'look' at me, a smile forming on his ruined face. "Oh yes, Herman. Death's been very good to me."

"Good. Then I can do this without worry."

I brought the manhole cover down on his skull with both hands.

It was like slamming a watermelon with a sledgehammer. What was left of Black Talon's head cracked under the weight of the attack. Bone shards splintered as the skin and muscle surrounding the skull collapsed, turning into a spray of red that radiated 360 degrees. The front of my armor got a large amount of blood splashed across the torso, the impact setting off the contact panels. I let go of the cover, taking a step backwards from the body. Black Talon's corpse was still in a kneeling position, with the manhole cover balancing on his shoulder blades, wobbling slightly as gravity slowly began to work its magic. The Punisher pulled himself away as the headless priest's body leaned forward, falling slowly like a tree after the lumberjacks had finished with it. The cover slid off, banging onto the street, followed by Black Talon's lifeless corpse bouncing onto the pavement next to it.

"Hurk..."

I barely got my mask off before I threw up. Doubled over on the street, the last meal I had eaten in the warehouse splattered off of the pavement, and my body kept trying to heave up anything else in my GI tract. I had seen some nasty stuff in my time as a villain, but turning someone's brains into tomato paste was a new one.

"Schultz." I felt a hand pull me back into an upright position. The Kevlar on the Punisher's chest glistened as blood dripped from small cuts in the material, and he started at me with those dead, neutral eyes. "You've been blasting zombies for a week. This isn't any different."

I wiped at my mouth, sticking my tongue out to try to get the bile taste out of my mouth. "Jesus, Castle, that..."

"He was dead," the Punisher interrupted me. "Dead. You didn't kill a human being, you put down a corpse. I killed him last night. You just finished it off. Now, pull it together and get down in the sewer. I'll..." He paused, cocking his head to one side. "You hear something?"

I did. It sounded like a little bit of gravel falling on a tin roof. "Whatever it is, Castle, it can't be good. Let's get the hell..."

Pause.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

One of Black Talon's teeth was bouncing across the pavement. It would bounce an inch or two, come to a stop, and then roll over to move a little further. I watched, spellbound, as the tooth rolled into a small red puddle, and stop in an upright position. Immediately, it was followed by a second tooth, and a shard of bone. The red puddle slowly flowed upwards, leeching its way around the teeth, and solidifying into something resembling gums.

"We gotta go," I muttered as the combination of teeth, gum, and bone began to roll towards the neck of Black Talon's body. All across the pavement, the goo that had been his head was moving as well, all pulling towards each other and reforming into part of his head even as they rolled. "That's just not right..."

"Into the sewer, Schultz. Go." The Punisher urged me on, and I followed his direction, heading right for the opening in the street. I could handle heads exploding. It was the putting them back together that scratched at the subconscious part of my mind. Pulling my mask back on, I clicked on my night vision goggles as I peered into the hole. Nothing moved below but the gentle trickle of water. Made sense, since there was an entire city not using toilets or sinks right now. I carefully climbed down, using the rungs set in the side of the tunnel. The Punisher had picked well. The tunnel must have been a "sewer main," just tall enough to stand in and just wide enough for two people to walk sort-of-side-by-soft-of-side. A quick check up and down showed nothing moving towards me.

A pair of boots landed beside me. "End of the tunnel, Schultz," the Punisher said gruffly, "all the way to the wall. And move it. Black Talon's got his jaw back now."

As I moved forward, I asked "want me to keep an eye on the manhole in case he tries to come down here?"

"No. Just get us to the damn wall." Our boots made quiet splashes in the water as we double-timed it, maybe twenty or thirty yards from where we had slid into the sewer. Above us, the moans and shuffling of the packed zombie horde against the Central Park barricades was muffled by the layer of asphalt and pipes above our heads. We reached the end of the tunnel, and my night-vision revealed it to be a simple brick wall, stacked on top of each other and sealed with mortar, a barricade I could easily have blasted through. The Punisher pushed past me, and after a second, pushed one of the bricks. It sank into the wall, and quietly, the right section of the wall swung open. "Go on, and watch your step. There's a bear trap on the ground, and the teeth...are smeared with something."

Oh yeah, I watched my step. I had to squeeze through the opening, my eyes on the ground. In low-light vision, the cold metal of the trap appeared even more wicked. A big step took me over the trap as the Punisher stepped behind me. The wall clicked back into place as the Punisher stepped around the trap. Behind the barricade, the tunnel stretched out a little further before ending in a series of iron bars as the floor sloped downward out of sight. To the side of the iron bars, a metal door was set into the wall, and a padlock, the kind ConEd uses to lock maintenance doors, held it shut.

"Shouldn't we be worried about Black Talon," I said in a low voice.

"Black Talon should be worried about me." The Punisher was running his hand along a pipe high on the wall. His shoulder stretched, putting pressure on the cuts as he grunted. "Damn it. I know it's up here..."

Under my mask, for the first time in days, I felt a genuine smile creep across my face. "I got this, Punisher." I stepped past him, looking down at the lock. Child's play. I opened a compartment on my belt, pulling out one of my trusty lockpicks. Five seconds later, the lock popped open. That felt good.

"Huh," the Punisher said as I put the lockpick back. He stepped past me, and opened up the door. "Tripwire, chest high. Watch it."

I followed him inside, closing the door behind us and ducking where he ducked to walk underneath a taut wire stretched across the short entryway. I was standing back up when, with a flick of his wrist, the Punisher snapped the light switch. As the small room lit up, I gave off a low whistle. "Damn, Castle. You don't mess around."

Guns. Lots of guns. Hanging on the walls, stacked in crates on the ground, lying on workbenches. Pistols, revolvers, shotguns, submachine guns, rifles, assault rifles. Grenades, fragmentation mines, flashbangs, and a couple of gallon jugs filled with some sort of clear jelly. "What the hell were you doing, planning to fight a war?"

He had hobbled to a refrigerator humming away in the corner. "I was going after a slaver ring when the dead started rising. I don't like slavers, Herman."

"I can tell," I muttered, nodding in agreement. "Alright. So what do we do now?"

"We aren't going to do anything." Castle was pulling plastic bags from the fridge as he spoke. "You are going out the back door. Follow the tunnel and it'll bring you out by the Dene Shelter. Head north and you should run into someone who'll take you to Colonel Fury. Between you, Spider-Man, and Myers, he should have some kind of plan to deal with the Grim Reaper."

"Yeah...and what the hell are you going to do?"

He spilled the plastic bags onto a workbench...four flat bags of red plasma. "I'm gonna refill and set a trap for Black Talon. Then I'll follow you. Don't try to argue with me, Schultz. You have to get to Fury, and I'm still thinking of ways to kill you."

There's motivation for you. "Alright, I'm going." He was pulling rubbing tubing out of a black fabric bag, and I was heading for the rear door to the arsenal under the Arsenal, when I realized...I had to ask.

"Castle, the Grim Reaper offered me power and survival to work for him. What the hell did he offer you?"

The silence made me regret asking the question. I shrugged it off, and was opening the back door when the Punisher answered. "I had just pulled myself out of the Hudson when Reaper showed up. I was lying on the pavement, trying to catch my breath when he landed. Offered me a chance to work with him. Said he'd give me power, lots of it, so I could take out everyone. You. Osborn. Wittman. Mercer. Doom. Lehnsherr. Someone made a deal like that once. Wanted me to be their mystical hitman. Didn't take that offer. Sure as hell not going to take Reaper's. Close the door behind you, Schultz."

Before I did, I saw the Punisher, having tied off his arm with rubber tubing, setting up an IV stand right next to the .50 caliber machine gun that was emplaced on the center workbench.

So there I was. Central Park, at last. The back tunnel out of the Punisher's storeroom had wound its way north, ending at a storm drain, with a tall ladder sunken into the wall. It took a bit of shoving to open the hatch at the top of the ladder before I climbed out into the open air.

The Dene was a long stretch of rolling hills abutting Fifth Avenue. Being slightly elevated, I could make out the top of the floodlights through the red-and-orange leaves that stubbornly clung to the branches. The moans were much more audible here in the Park, greeting me as soon as I climbed out of the sewer. Next to the tunnel, a tall stone outcropping, Kid's Rock (no, not the singer) acted as a landmark. Just beyond that, sitting on top of a steep hill, Dene Shelter, a rustic wooden shelter, would have provided me with a great view of the army of living dead besieging the Park. But right now, that wasn't what interested me. I turned to the north, immediately picking out the well-lit walkways and bike paths that wound through the Dene. The grass was dry as I worked my way down from the hill, intent on heading north, towards the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir, and hopefully Spider-Man and Boomerang...along with damn near everyone else who had crammed into this oasis in the middle of Manhattan. I could make out the huge lights that shone from tall towers down along the Reservoir, and could imagine throngs of panicked citizens huddled together, with the Avengers and countless supervillains working with SHIELD to keep order.

They must have been keeping everyone close, because I didn't see a soul for about five minutes. After a couple of days of zombies, panicked civilians, warehouse co-habitators, and people trying to kill me, being all alone, my feet pounding the pavement with only the sounds of the living dead pressing at the barricades...well, it was a bit unnerving. Maybe this was what being the last man on Earth was like. Just me and the groans of zombies. The further I headed into the park, though, the quieter and less audible the moans became...which kind of made it worse, increasing my sense of loneliness even as the scraping on my ears went away.

I was leaving the Dene, passing Loeb Boathouse with Belvedere Castle looming in the distance, backlit by the powerful flood lights, when I saw them. Two figures, walking side-by-side, wearing NYPD uniforms with Kevlar vests over their chests. They both had on riot helmets, with sub-machine guns slung over their shoulders. They had just turned away from me, back towards the Reservoir, when I put my hands to my sides, pointing my gloves away from them. "Hey! Hey, officers!"

I can't believe I was actually calling out to police officers. I did my best to assume a non-threatening posture, keeping my gloves pointing towards the ground, as they both spun to face me. "Holy crap," one of them blurted out, "it's the Shocker! It's the damn Shocker! I can't believe we got him!"

Pride was swelling in my chest as I nodded. "Yeah, it's me. I just didn't want to startle you guys," I said as I started to lower my hands...

"Keep your damn hands up, Schultz!" The second cop suddenly had his sub-machine gun pointed at me, having unslung it and aimed it in one well-trained swoop. "Don't you move!"

My hands immediately shot back up into the air. "Whoa, whoa! What the hell...I come in peace!"

"You so much as twitch and you're gonna leave in pieces! Jones, call this one in."

"On it." Officer Jones pushed the button on his two-way radio as I kept my hands in the air. "Unit 342, calling Command, come in."

"Go ahead, Unit 342."

"We've got Subject Delta in custody, just north of the Dene. Request backup to bring him in."

"Unit 342, copy. We're dispatching two units as backup. Treat subject as armed and dangerous."

"Command, copy. Out." Jones unslung his weapon as well, both cops now keeping be covered. I couldn't make out their facial expressions under their helmets, but from their body language, it wouldn't take much for the two of them to perforate me.

"Can someone explain..."

"Shut it, Schultz," the nameless officer growled.

"Damn it, tell me what the hell's going..."

"I said, SHUT it, Schultz. We know what you're up to. And you're going down for it."

X

"Listen to me, damn it, I didn't do anything! I swear!"

Officer Jones, firmly gripping my shoulder, shoved me into the small room. "You just sit tight. Someone will be along to take care of you."

"Damn it, listen to me! LISTEN TO ME!" The officer didn't even react to my plea as he turned to walk out the door, slamming it shut behind him. I heard the lock engage, and then the footsteps of the officer's footsteps as he walked away. Immediately, I was crouched next to the door, my fingers tracing the outline of the lock.

Within minutes of the officers calling in my apprehension, four NYPD cops and two SHIELD soldiers had shown up. Under the guns of that much firepower, I surrendered my vibro-smashers and my belt, including my lockpicks, before being marched towards the Reservoir, surrounded on all sides by the authorities. Not one of them would tell me what I had been accused of, and my questions had been answered with harsh glares. Oh, I knew those glares well. They were of the "if this was a dark alleyway, you wouldn't be walking out alive" variety, the looks that would make even the most hardened criminal respectful of the power of the badge. Moving quickly, they escorted towards the massive refugee camp in the center of Central Park. The tall tower lights shone down upon the camp which had been set up on the Great Lawn, beginning just before 79th Street. A long line of barricades, about four feet high, marked the lower boundary. As the guards escorted me through an entrance checkpoint at 79th and East Drive, I finally got my first look at the refugee camp that had been the focus of rescue activity and zombie eradication for the past week.

To say the camp was crowded was the understatement of the year. The first refugees I saw were huddled just beyond the barricades, giving the guards enough room to walk a patrol. A young girl, no older than the girl I had pulled from that apartment building, was clutching a teddy bear, while her father sat on the ground, holding her close and stroking her hair. Not three feet away, a group of Asians, varying in age, sat in a circle, talking quietly. Then, a young Hispanic man was stretched out on the ground, snoring quietly. All races, all creeds, all socio-economic levels...they were all crammed into this rescue station. Right here, this is what I wanted to avoid the second Osborn proclaimed his executive order a week ago. Don't get me wrong, being surrounded by the NYPD, SHIELD, and member of the US Armed Forces ain't anything to sneeze at. But the conditions...from what I could make out as I was whisked through, I saw outhouses set up in various areas, and there were medical pavilions scattered here and there, and the guards were keeping order. The government had learned from Hurricane Katrina and the Hulk's rampage which had forced evacuation of New York City last summer. The camp was set up in an orderly fashion and aside from there being almost no elbow room, things didn't look any worse than if a free concert was being held on the Great Lawn. My concern was this. No way out. If a horde of the undead suddenly busted through the barriers, the citizens had nowhere to run. Friendly fire was bound to happen. And, more importantly, there wasn't a single superpowered being helping walk the line.

The eight officers escorting me closed ranks, blocking my view. They were packed around me so tight that anyone on the outside couldn't have caught a glimpse of me. I wondered what they would of thought if they had seen me, the hero of the hour, being frog-marched like the common criminal I used to be.

The officers brought me to a temporary field holding facility, a double-wide trailer set up just on the edge of the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir. Six of them had taken up positions at the front door while Officer Jones, and a SHIELD soldier brought me to the interrogation. Ok. They had taken my lockpicks, but once upon I time, I could pick a lock without using anything but my ears and my bare hands. Besides, it was a government lock, designed and installed by the contractor putting in the lowest bid...

The door swung open before I could get started. I immediately jolted to my feet, taking in the blue-and-white SHIELD officer in front of me. "Look, listen..."

"Sit down," the officer growled.

"Damn it, listen..."

"I said," the officer replied, shoving me backwards, "sit down!"

"Look, will someone JUST listen to me, god damn it! I didn't do anything!"

"I know that, you idiot! And if you were half as smart as everyone says you are, Schultz, you would have realized we planted that god damn story for your own protection! If you came waltzing up here by yourself, without armed guards, Osborn would have made sure you didn't make it twenty feet before some cop on his payroll blew you away!" Colonel Nick Fury slammed the door shut behind him, stepping into the cell and jamming his finger at the chair. "Now sit down and start talking!" Nick Fury. World War II hero. SHIELD commander for damn near my entire life. And currently, chomping on a cigar and giving me more attitude with one eye than the Sinister Twelve could muster on their best day. "Where the hell are Spider-Man and Boomerang? I sent them out after you over an hour ago!"

"They should have been back by now! I don't know where they are!"

"Well, then let's talk about what you do know, Schultz." Fury sat down on one of the chairs, and motioned for me to sit in the one on the other side of the table. "Let's start with the Chameleon, and why he was impersonating you."

"Colonel," I said after taking my seat, "right now, that's small potatoes. There's something a lot bigger..."

"A helicopter sent to retrieve you and the Rhino from your warehouse comes back without the Rhino, with the Chameleon pretending to be you, and Norman Osborn telling me the Punisher killed Systevich." Fury crossed his arms, glaring at me across the table. "If Norman Osborn's involved, that's the potatoes I'm interested in..."

Screw that. I wasn't going to be the guy who knew what was going on that no one believed. "I know why the dead are coming back to life," I blurted out, "and who's behind it."

Fury's eyebrow went up a quarter of an inch at that statement. "Is it Norman Osborn?"

"No...kinda. It's his fault in a roundabout way."

He pursed his lips around his cigar. "Alright, Schultz. I'm in the mood for you to explain how you know what our scientists don't. Humor me."

"It's the Grim Reaper. He's working for some cosmic big wig, named Dormammu. And it's all because the Reaper had a vision Norman Osborn was going to kill him." That got me another quarter inch. I just started spilling everything, talking faster than I ever had in my life. From the rooftop attack that saw Rhino dead, to the helicopter ride with Osborn, Chameleon, and Trapster, to Electro and the Vulture, to my rescue at the hands of Boomerang and Spider-Man, and ending with my encounter with Black Talon and escape into Central Park.

"I know this sounds insane," I concluded.

"You're telling me," Fury groused.

"But it's true. All of it. Unless I'm dreaming, and right now, I kind of want to be."

Fury was still giving me that look, but it had gotten less intense over the course of my tale. Keeping his eye on me, he tapped his communicator. "Starluck, I want you to take a team and check out the Dene. I've got good intel that the Punisher's got a hideout down an access shaft near the Dene Shelter. If it's true, let's get him on our side. Don't screw around, either, I want you back here as quickly as possible when we start the evac, with or without Frank Castle."

"Moving at lightspeed, Colonel," came Starluck's voice over the device.

"Schultz, we're walking." Fury stood up, and I immediately followed him. The SHIELD guard outside the room saluted the Colonel as we headed outside. "Alright, so just to make absolutely sure I have this straight, this god, Dormammu, recruited the Grim Reaper to be his right-hand man because Williams had a vision Osborn was going to kill him. Reaper does what his boss tells him to, and by killing the Hood, the dead started coming back to life. And Osborn decides the best way to combat this is to use the citizens of New York City as bait to draw out the Reaper, but the Reaper's got himself an army of mojo slingers along with the Vulture and Electro, and to top it all off, Black Talon regenerated his entire skull and Spider-Man and Boomerang are missing."

We stepped outside into the night air as I nodded in agreement. "That's about it."

"You're right, Schultz. It is insane. But it's insane enough that Osborn's involvement makes it plausible." At the bottom of the small rise of steps leading up to the trailer, Fury barked out a name. "DANIELS!"

From the side, the female soldier who had escorted Nick Fury into the containment lab, live on national TV, trotted up to him, giving him a quick salute. "Sir!"

"Begin the evacuation procedures, Daniels. Get everyone to their places and get these civilians ready to move! I want people feet dry on Long Island within sixty seconds of Doctor Strange opening that portal!"

She didn't even waste time acknowledging the order, instead barking into her communicator. "Dunkirk! All SHIELD, military, and civilian units, Dunkirk! This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!"

Immediately, SHIELD sprung into action. Along with the NYPD officers I could make out, they began marching, not running, which could instill panic, but moving quickly. I heard orders being shouted through bullhorns and saw equipment being packed up as Fury walked quickly through everything. I had to double-time it to keep pace with the old war dog as he made his way through the chaos. "Colonel, where the hell are my guys? The guys from the warehouse? I haven't seen one of them."

"Gone," Fury said without turning. "When Chameleon turned out to be masquerading as you, Osborn said it was proof that none of your buddies could be trusted, and ordered them all arrested."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction, without the high pitch. Something about how any of them could be a shape changer, like a Skrull. Which is utter horsehockey. When told me to go lock all your boys up and hold them, and I'm quoting, 'until the crisis has passed,' I gave them the option of getting the hell out of Dodge. And they all took it, every single villain we had on our side, from Aqueduct to Zemo. They all got the hell out of dodge."

I almost came to a shocked halt, but when you're following Nick Fury, he doesn't allow you that kind of time. So it was more of a mobile indignance. "What the hell was Osborn thinking? Not only is he passing on a lot of firepower, but brainpower too! Damn it...I gave them my word! I gave them Captain America's word, that they wouldn't be arrested!" I brushed past two SHIELD soldiers running the opposite direction along the walkway. I didn't even know where we were going, but when in doubt, follow the Colonel, who led the way with long strides. "There goes my street cred."

"If it means a damn to you, Schultz, I think most of them blame Osborn more than they blame you."  
It did, somewhat. "Where the hell did they go?"

"We don't know. They stepped into some black hyperspace portal Molecule Man whipped up and just vanished."

"What about everyone else? The Fantastic Four, the Avengers?"

"Scattered. The Fantastic Four and Luke Cage are at the other end of the portal, and I got Hank Pym and Spider-Woman making one last sweep of the city. Rest of the Avengers are with Doctor Strange making sure nothing goes south."

"So where the hell are we going, Colonel?"

"We're going to confront Osborn," he said without stopping. We had reached the edge of the reservoir now. The black waters lapped calmly against the stone edges, a gentle sound as opposed to the buzz of activity going on around us. "It's simple, Schultz," he told me as we turned and started to walk to the west. "Osborn's always been a loon, but your story is the damn icing on the cake. Far as I'm concerned, I have enough evidence to make him resign his post and get someone sensible in there. He's gotten unstable the past twenty-four hours, and if all the work and danger SHIELD's put itself into has been just so he can engineer a showdown with the Grim Reaper, I'm gonna accept his resignation, and then punch him in the damn teeth."

The two SHIELD soldiers at the final checkpoint snapped to attention and saluted the Colonel as we approached. "As you were," he snapped as we passed between them. The checkpoint was a massive structure, the last point of authority before entering the high security checkpoint on the northwest quadrant of the Great Lawn. As opposed to the huddles masses of civilians elsewhere on the Lawn, this area was clear of anyone not in the employ of SHIELD. As we entered, soldiers were pounding stakes into the ground, using them to string guiding ropes.

"Doctor Strange is opening the portal to Long Island at 85th Street and the Traverse," Fury informed me as we headed towards the intersection. "Something about a crossroads being the perfect juncture for magic or some crap. Osborn is there supervising the efforts, which amounts to staying out of the way as Strange sets up the ritual."

"Right...so what the hell do we do once we get there? Just walk right up and confront Osborn?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Yeah. Walk right up and punch him."

"Ain't gonna fly. Osborn ain't the only one watching Strange. There are a couple of Avengers there, and since Osborn's still in charge, they're watching his back. And Osborn's got your buddy Petruski as his bodyguard. You throw one punch and it's only a matter of who shoots you first, Iron Man or the Trapster."

If Fury was asking me to stay calm and cool, he had another thing coming. Ever since this whole mess started, it felt like control of my life was almost an illusion that more things happened TO me than BECAUSE of me. 'Herman Schultz, the wrong man in the wrong places at wrong times' would be a great tagline to a movie made about the past week. Each step I took just made my anger boil over a little bit more. Without my life wasn't being threatened, all I had really thought about since Fury and I had left that interrogation room was revenge. Revenge for trying to kill me. Revenge killing Aleksei. And on some level, revenge for turning Central Park into one big chum basket for the undead. Though maybe that one was just to provide another rationalization. Rationalizations make the world go around. Personally, I believe rationalizations are more important to humanity then sex. Don't believe me? Ask yourself this. When was the last time you went more than a week without making a rationalization?

The intersection of 85th Street and the Traverse wasn't barricaded or sealed off like the rest of the park. But it didn't need to be. The glowing, humming green circle hanging in mid-air, perpendicular to the ground, was security enough just by the "this is magic, DO NOT APPROACH" vibe. So, of course, Fury and I headed right for the circle. It was maybe fifteen feet in circumference, with an eerie green glow being emitted from the center. Golden runes hung in the air around it, pulsing slightly with the rising and falling hum. Think a Stargate from that Kurt Russell movie and you're dead on the money.

We could make out the figures standing around the circle as we approached. I'd mentioned before, way back in this tale, how sometimes, you couldn't help but be in awe of the heroes you meet, run in to, or interact with. Even if they're kicking your ass at the time, you can't help but respect or be impressed by their sheer presence. Right now, Fury was leading me into the heart of heroism, some of the greatest heroes on the face of the planet standing by, watching the way out from Central Park being formed in front of them. Heroes...and the man who tried to kill me, along with the former friend who had betrayed me to him.

In front of the soon-to-be-portal, waving his hands in the same sort of intricate pattern that Black Talon had utilized, stood the Sorcerer Supreme. Among the criminal community, his name was whispered, usually brought up in awe or reverence. You may or may not put much stock in magic and sorcery, but anyone who crossed paths with Doctor Strange came away with an understanding of the sheer power that the man commanded. The energy from the portal billowed the long cape he wore, and even though he wasn't speaking in a loud voice, you could decipher, just at the edge of your hearing, the chanting as he wove his spell.

I've already spoken about Captain America. He stood about thirty feet away from the portal, standing tall, almost at parade rest. His shield hung on his shoulders, his hands clasped behind the small of his back, watching the proceedings. And how many times have I mentioned Ms. Marvel, who stood, arms crossed across her chest, rocking that black-and-yellow spandex in late October? And, of course, the mighty Thor. Can't forget him.

Two other Avengers were nearby, observing Strange's ritual. A metal figure, yellow-and-re, and a muscular figure in red-and-black, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Iron Man, the leader of the Avengers. Simon Williams, also known as Wonder Man, Hollywood stunt man and the Grim Reaper's older brother. And next to Iron Man, head cocked to the side, rocking the three-piece suit, Norman Osborn stood tall, looking like he belonged with the proverbial gods. Behind him, keeping a nervous eye on the Avengers, the Trapster craned his neck.

"Now, remember Schultz," Fury told me as we made the final approach, "this is all about confronting Osborn. As much as you hate him, and have every right, you can't kill him. You can't hurt him. You can't TOUCH him."

"Got it," I said tightly.

"I'm dead serious. He's still in charge. He's got the Avengers on his side. Right now, he's the damn hero of the hour if Strange pulls this off."

"I know..."

"Schultz. Your word. Give me your word, right now, that you're not going to touch Osborn. No punches, no kicks, and no blasts."

"I promise, Colonel. I'm not going to lay a finger on Osborn, up close and personal or from a distance." And yeah, I meant it. Fury had a damn good point. Punching Osborn would have made me feel a LOT better. And at the edges of my rational mind, the thought of doing something much, much worse teased me. But there was something much more important at stake this time out. I just had to keep telling myself that with every step I took.

It was Ms. Marvel who noticed us first. She half-turned her head, noticing Colonel Fury...but did a double-take when she was my quilted form walking with him. "Shocker?"

And now, we had everyone's attention. They all turned to face us. The Avengers were staring at me, and I was walking right towards them. It was Osborn who looked the most non-plussed at my arrival. "Colonel Fury," Osborn said, the first one to speak as we finally arrived within the group, "why are you bringing this crim..."

I kept my word. I didn't lay a hand on Osborn.

However, I'm sure my punch broke the Trapster's jaw.

I fired a level-one just as I slammed my fist into his face. The poor bastard had looked so stunned to see me alive, he couldn't even get his hands up in time. I felt the impact through my armor, following through with my attack, driving with my shoulder, just like Aleksei had taught me. As I recovered, I could see Trapster almost complete a pirouette as he fell to the ground, spinning on one foot and landing on his side.

Almost immediately, I felt two pairs of hands grab my arms, before I could even enjoy the satisfaction of decking the bastard. Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man pulled me backwards, away from where Trapster was moaning on the ground, holding his chin with both hands. "Damn it, Schultz," Fury said with...well, fury in his quiet tone.

"I never said anything about Petruski." I tried to pull my arms away from the two Avengers, but they both held me tight, Wonder Man hurting me with his grip on my bicep.

"Colonel," Norman Osborn replied, not even glancing at Trapster as he was getting back to his feet, "I want that man arrested for assaulting an OsCorp employee."

Fury's response was to simply shift the cigar from one end of his mouth to the other. Osborn sighed as his bodyguard, bleeding from a split lip and bit tongue, tried to stand up straight next to him. "Fine. Well, then, Shocker, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company? You are aware you're crashing this party at a critical juncture. Doctor Strange is moments away from opening a gateway to transport the civilians here in Central Park to safety, and yet you show up and almost disrupt the proceedings with violence."

"You killed Aleksei, you..." I began, pulling at the two Avengers holding me.

"Osborn," Fury said, cutting me off sharply, "I had a very interesting chat with Schultz here. He's got a couple of things he'd like to say about what happened to the Rhino on that rooftop, and on the helicopter ride afterwards."

"Really," Osborn replied in a dismissive tone. "We really don't have time for bedtime stories, Colonel. Besides, Schultz is a known criminal...and for all I know, he's an imposter, just like the Chameleon earlier this evening. Anything this copy says is suspect at best. If you want to interrogate him, there's a trailer for that, isn't there?"

"There's more. I know..."

"Schultz." Fury simply shifted his one-eye to glare at me, and I got really quiet really fast. This was his turf, not mine. "Osborn, I think everyone here needs to listen to what Schultz has to say."

"Please." Osborn turned away, facing the glowing green circle again. "This is a waste of..."

"Hold up."

All eyes turned now to Captain America. The man who had picked up the legendary mantle and carried it with pride stepped forward, away from the group, towards me. "If Colonel Fury says we should listen to Schultz, than we should consider it." Osborn scoffed behind him as the blue-and-white Avenger studied me. I stiffened my spine, trying to stand upright. "But one question. How do we know this is the real Herman Schultz? That is a valid question..."

"The rooftop." I didn't think, just spoke. "We shook hands, and I acted like a little kid meeting Derek Jeter. It was you and Abner...MACH-IV...and you gave me your word that my friends, the bad guys, wouldn't face charges if they showed up here in Central Park. You even got Colonel Fury to put it in writing."

A nod from Captain America. "That's true." He turned back to look at his fellow Avengers. "We should listen to him, Iron Man."

"Oh, come on," Osborn said to no one in particular.

With the whir of electronic gyros, Iron Man stepped forward to stand next to me. He gave a nod to Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man. The two of them let go of me. I rubbed my arms as the armored warrior nicknamed 'Shellhead' faced me. "Alright, Herman," a robotic voice said. "Let's hear what you have to say."

I looked over at Colonel Fury, who nodded. "Just what you told me, Schultz. Leave nothing out."

I had to do it. I turned to look at Wonder Man, standing off to my right. "I know who's behind everything. I'm sorry, Simon...it's your brother, Eric. It's all his fault."

I didn't expect his reaction. Anger, depression, surprise...no, it was a resigned sigh from the big man, who looked at me with red eyes...not red like the pools of blood I had seen in others, but glowing softly from deep within his pupils. "No surprise. No one had seen him this past week, and zombies are part of his MO. Damn it..."

"Please. Zombies on a massive scale are well beyond the Grim Reaper's reach," Osborn scoffed.

I did my best to ignore Osborn. Hell, he wanted to know and draw out who was behind this. Careful what you wish for, Norman. "Well, the Reaper got an upgrade, Norman. He's got back up. Some guy named Dormammu."

THAT got a reaction from the Avengers. Thor stepped forward now, pushing past Iron Man. "Herman, are thou sure of that name?"

"Oh yeah. Trust me, Thor...I met the guy. After Osborn killed Aleksei and dumped me on the Lower East Side to die, I got picked up by some of the Reaper's crew and brought to St Patrick's Cathedral. Dormammu apparently gave Reaper the mojo to pull this trick off, and the Reaper just ran with it..."

"Shouldn't we be telling Strange this," Fury interjected. "He's gonna want to hear all about this guy."

"Strange told us not to interrupt him," Osborn replied. "And there will be plenty of time for lies and fabrication once the portal is open. That is our main goal right now. Once the civilians are safe, then we can hold this discussion."

"Hold on." This was Ms. Marvel, who was staring at Osborn with one eyebrow raised. "Schultz said you killed the Rhino. You have anything to say about that?"

"The Punisher killed him. I stand by my statement."

"Well, when my team brings Castle in, we'll just compare statements and see who's telling the truth," Fury countered. "They're on their way to grab him now."

"Huh. And who will you believe, Avengers, me, a fine upstanding citizen, or a crazed vigilante?" Osborn didn't wait for an answer, instead turning to the Trapster. "Wipe your mouth. You're bleeding."

"We're missing the point. Herman," Wonder Man said, "go back to the Grim Reaper. What's his involvement in all of this?"

I eyed Osborn as I laid out what the Grim Reaper had told me. "Apparently, Dormammu showed Reaper a vision of someone on Osborn's payroll shanking him in prison, and then Osborn going on to destroy the planet. Reaper decided to work for him and destroy the planet the way his boss wants him to, before Osborn can pull it off. He gathered a whole bunch of magic users to work for him...like Baron Mordo." Wonder Man nodded at the name as I continued. "And he's got a couple of other guys, like the Vulture and Electro on his payroll. They captured me and had Electro torture me, but Spider-Man and Boomerang rescued me. Not before I heard, though, that Mordo got his hands on something called the Darkhold that was the final piece of the puzzle. Oh...and they also rescued the Punisher, who had been captured before I was."

"I sent Boomerang and Spider-Man out to rescue Schultz once we found out the Chameleon was impersonating him," Fury added, "but neither of them are back yet. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Norman?"

"Hardly. I've been here making sure this plan goes through, Fury. Now, if you're done trying to pin anything onto me..."

"He killed Aleksei." I pointed a finger at him, causing Wonder Man and Ms. Marvel to tense up in case I attacked him. "The Trapster, Osborn, and Chameleon landed on my rooftop after Aleksei and I missed the last Quinjet out. Osborn used a shaped charge to blow a hole in Aleksei's rhino suit and the Trapster paralyzed me and dumped me on the street to die. This whole thing, this whole plan to move people into Central Park, was Osborn's attempt to centralize power and draw the guy behind all of this out...and the Grim Reaper's out there, putting his plan into motion."

Silence once I finished. After a few seconds, it was Iron Man who broke up. "Schultz, that's an incredible story. But...it's just your word. Cap believes you, and Fury believes you..."

"As do I," Thor added.

"Me too," said Ms. Marvel.

"...but we need proof."

"...I got nothing," I admitted to Iron Man. "I got nothing but my word."

"Which, as we all know from the past, is worthless." Osborn waved a hand in my direction. "You're nothing more than a common thug who decided to do the right thing for once, Schultz. That doesn't clean the slate of all the crimes you committed, Herman. One day as a lion does not balance out a lifetime as a jackal."

Under my mask, I raised an eyebrow. Oh, thank you for hubris. "You're right, Norman. Absolutely right. All the good things I've done don't matter a lick compared to the bad. You're the expert on that topic, aren't you, Green Goblin?"

If it wasn't for the persistent hum, you could have heard a pin drop. I think Ms. Marvel let out a low whistle at the comment. Osborn...I had him. His lip quivered, just for a second. And I drove it home.

"You've committed murder, acts of terrorism, property damage, embezzlement, and who knows what else? So we shouldn't pay one bit of attention to all your good works. Hell, someone here should be making a citizen's arrest, just in case all of this is part of some grand master plan. You know all about grand master plans, don't you? World ending plans?"

Osborn's eyes narrowed as he glared at me. That would have scared me once. This bastard killed my best friend in front of me while I was helpless.

I shouldn't be scared of him.

Norman Osborn should be scared of ME.

"Schultz, all you've done is run around, save a few citizens, and rally the forces of evil to do something positive for once with their lives. I've run the ENTIRE United States government when the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Vice President got eaten and the current President managed this crisis and was found wanting. I've directed the Initiative. I've rescued the population of New York City, as soon as that portal opens. I'm going to save what's left of America. I've taken government resources and done the impossible. You just got lucky. Once the citizens have been evacuated to Long Island, I will command Nick Fury and the Avengers, along with Doctor Strange, to look into the possibility that the Grim Reaper and this Dormammu are responsible for this epidemic. Until then, Colonel Fury, under the authority invested in me as a law-enforcement authority, I demand you arrest Herman Schultz and hold him in custody until such time as this current crisis can pass."

Osborn smirked at me, and Trapster did his best to smile through a broken jaw, as Fury studied me. "You know, Osborn," the Colonel said as he pulled the burned-to-the-stub cigar out of his mouth, "I left my badge in my other uniform. Try asking one of the Avengers."

Captain America gave a half-hearted shrug towards the former CEO. "Mr. Osborn, the Avengers are not authorized to make direct arrests, and I don't think we can spare any NYPD members with Operation Dunkirk currently underway."

Knowing Captain America had my back made my balls a little brassier. "Hey, Peter, tell you what," I told the Trapster. "You can arrest me if you got the stones."

"No one's arresting anyone," Fury said. "We're going to get this people out of here. That's priority number one. Priority number two is going to be trying to track down the Grim Reaper. As soon as I can spare some people, that's what SHIELD's going to be doing. Schultz," he snapped at me, "you don't leave my side. If you have to take a leak, I'm..."

"Gentlemen and lady."

The smooth, confident voice cut off Colonel Fury's comment. Thankfully. Doctor Strange floated in the air before us, six inches off of the ground. Behind him, the green portal was swirling, tendrils moving in a counterclockwise manner like those of a hurricane. "The ritual is nearly complete. Begin moving the civilians up, Colonel. By the time they arrive, the portal should connect Central Park and Long Island."

"Fantastic. Great work, Doctor. How long will the actual trip through the portal take?"

"It will be instantaneous. The trip through will take no time at all. Please make sure your

SHIELD teams at the other end are ready to receive the civilians."

"Got it." "Ms. Marvel, you're in charge of making sure nothing happens to Schultz. If he takes a leak..."

"I got it," she said, stepping up beside me. I took one look at the figure standing next me, and felt very reassured. Ms. Marvel actually flashed me a weary grin as I glanced at her. "Always ending up in the center of things, Schultz."

"Yeah. Anonymity has its charms," I quipped back, to a small chuckle. Damn, she had a nice smile.

"Alright, get everyone moving!" Fury turned away, and began to toss out orders into his communication device. "Single file through the checkpoint, four abreast! No pushing, no talk back. Daniels, inform our units on Long Island that they're going to be getting the first group of civilians in a matter of minutes, and to NOT let the exit portal get jammed up like the Lincoln Tunnel during rush hour"

"And Herman."

I turned to face Doctor Strange as he spoke to me. "I heard the name you mentioned a few minutes ago. Not many mortals can stare into his face and come away with their sanity intact. Find strength in that. After the civilians have been moved through, you and I will have to talk. Be ready."

"Looking forward to it," I joked. The Sorcerer Supreme nodded to me, and floated back over to the portal. I looked over my shoulder. Behind a glaring Petruski, the SHIELD soldiers were beginning to wave everyone between the guiding lines. I heard them calling out orders, telling the civilians to follow them. The citizens walked calmly, it looked like. No panic, no concern, no rush. SHIELD was here, and they had everything under control. This was going to go smoothly, right? "Come on, universe," I muttered under my breath, "cut humanity a break here."

"BY THE POWERS GIVEN TO ME BY THE GREAT MYSTERIES, I OPEN THIS PORTAL! BY HOGGATH, BY OSHTUR, BY CYTTORAK, AND BY THE OCTESSENCE, I STRENGTHEN THIS PORTAL! BY AGAMOTTO, I GIVE ACCESS TO THIS PORTAL TO THOSE IN DIRE NEED!"

His voice boomed across the Great Lawn. Doctor Strange was at least six feet off the ground, his arms at his sides, as the green portal suddenly flared up. Bright light shot across the area, and the runes along the side pulsed with a golden glow.

"It is..."

The runes suddenly lost their light. One moment, they shone with power, and the next, they hung in air, devoid of illumination. The portal, as we watched, churned like a whirlpool being stood on its edge. The bright, welcoming green glow became a dull red storm, turning in and over itself. As the waves crashed down within the mystical opening, the redness darkened, becoming the color of blood. I knew that color. I knew those motions. It was the same thing I had seen in the eyes of the Hulk while I was getting the tar beaten out of me. What floated in front of us was the mark of the beast, the ID card for the Grim Reaper's crew.

"No..." Doctor Strange whispered, before his hands came up, already weaving some kind of spell. "The portal isn't outward bound! It's a way in..."

Like a shark leaping from the water, a giant black hand burst from the portal. Before any of us could react, it had wrapped its fingers around Doctor Strange, pinning his arms to his side. Squeezing him tight, the hand yanked him forward. Yelling in pain and surprise, the Sorcerer Supreme passed through the red portal, the energy rippling like water from his passage.

"Oh," I heard Wonder Man say from beside me, "that is NOT good."

"All units, Colonel Fury, halt Dunkirk, halt Dunkirk! Someone explain to me what the hell just happened!"

"I believe, Colonel, that Doctor Strange's attempt to open an egress from New York City has instead created a way in." Thor hefted Mjolnir in one hand. "Something wicked this way comes. I can feel it."

"Great. Just great." Fury opened his communicator again. "I need Alpha Units to the Portal Site, I repeat, all Alpha Units! All other units, stand your ground and keep the situation under control."

"I guess you're about to get your wish, Osborn," I said in a quiet voice. The industrialist turned to me, curiosity on his face. "It's like you said. You set the bait, and the guy behind all of this is about to walk into your trap. I just hope you're up for the damn task."

He gave a quiet chuckle, pride in his laughter. "Herman, I didn't come this far to fail," he replied. "But do not get in my way. If you get hit by friendly fire, it's your own fault, not mine."

"Something's coming." Ms. Marvel had stepped away from me, letting Osborn speak without her hearing us. Her fists were clenched, eyes focused on the portal. Quietly, Captain America unslung his shield from his shoulders, putting it on his arm with practiced ease. I could see Wonder Man flanking Ms. Marvel, and heard the quiet whine of capacitors powering up in Iron Man's armor.

Hell, when in Rome. I stepped forward as well, coming up beside Thor, who stood stoically, Mjolnir gripped tightly. I raised my vibro-smashers, thumbs on the triggers, aiming them at the portal.

"You stand with us then, Herman," Thor asked me in a low voice,

My stomach couldn't sink any lower in my body. My hands were shaking underneath my gloves. My throat was parched. I hadn't had a drink since St. Patrick's. I really need to pee. I wanted to be anywhere else than right here, staring into the red portal.

"Yeah, Thor. I'm standing my ground."

"Good. Then the Avengers stand with you as well on this day."

Hearing the God of Thunder had my back helped. Don't get me wrong, I was expecting another God to come walking out of that portal, but...hey, I had my ass kicked by the Hulk and walked away. Maybe...just maybe...

The energy in the portal parted, and he stepped out. Striding forward a few steps, the Grim Reaper tapped his scythe on the ground as he grinned as the gathered Avengers. "Ah," he said in a mocking tone. "It's so nice to be in Central Park this time of year. Hello, New York City!" He threw his arms up to the Avengers like he was greeting an imaginary crowd. "It's so great to be here! Welcome, everyone...to the end of the world."

X

"Eric..."

Wonder Man stepped forward, standing between our group and the Grim Reaper. His fists were balled, his body tense, his voice angry. But it was like a parent being angry with their child. "Eric, what did you do?"

"Simon. I'm so glad you're the one to greet me. It's been way to..." Eric took a stepped forward towards his brother, when a loud whine filled the air, cutting Reaper off in mid-sentence.

"One more step, and I'll put a hole in your head." Fury adopted the shooter's stance, both hands gripping his plasma pistol. "Hands behind your head, Williams, and get down on the ground."

Reaper's response was a sigh. "Really, Colonel? You're going to arrest me? I don't think so." Suddenly, Reaper's scythe whipped around. Dark purple energy shot from the tip of his weapon, streaking through the air. It slammed into Fury's hands, causing him to drop his pistol and curse loudly.

Even as the pistol fell through the air, Reaper turned on his heels. His scythe came between Ms. Marvel's photonic blast, my twin level-two blasts, and Iron Man's repulsor beam, absorbing the energy attacks with ease. The energy dissipated along the length of his scythe, harmless, as Eric turned back to face his brother. "As I was saying, it's been way too long, Simon, since we've seen each other. I'm very pleased that we'll have this final face-to-face meeting. I want to remember your face when you realize time's run out."

"The world world's dying, and the Shocker's telling us it's all your fault!"

"Oh? He managed to make it here?" Reaper turned his gaze from Wonder Man for a second, smirking in my direction. "I'm impressed, Her..."

*WHAM!*

Reaper's head rocked to the side as Wonder Man punched him across his jaw. "Damn it, Eric! WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Slowly, Reaper turned his head to face his brother. "Fine. Yes, Simon. I brought all this about. I'm the conduit, the key, the reason for the season, whatever you want to call it. My master called, and I obeyed. And you don't even need to ask why. I'll point that reason out to you." The scythe raised again, the Reaper pointing his weapon as Norman Osborn, still standing calmly next to a wide-eyed Trapster. "Hello, Norman."

"Reaper," Osborn said with a slight incline of his head. "I suppose it's too late for negotiations?"

"Much too late. My boss has already made all the bargains and deals he needs to. Everything is in motion, and..."

"ENOUGH!"

Thor's voice echoed into the distance as he leveled his massive hammer at the Grim Reaper. "The time for words is over. Eric Williams, thou are responsible for crimes against humanity, by thou own admission. In the past, thou have slipped away from our grasp time and time again. Not now. Not again. Tonight, you face your final judgment. The Son of Odin swears thus!"

"Are you sure?" Reaper spread his arms wide, encompassing the entire group. "I'm here to tell you everything. All of my plans, the reason behind everything! I think it's only fair that, before you die, you know the truth. Doesn't that interest you?"

"No. It doesn't," Iron Man answered. "You're just another megalomaniac who's managed to be a successful pawn in the grand scheme of a powerful being. You're not the one we're after now, Reaper. We're after your boss. As far as I'm concerned, all you've earned from us is a thrashing. We're the Avengers. We've beaten gods. You're just a speed bump."

"Right now, Iron Man, my boss is thrashing the only line of defense you have against him. Once Strange has been beaten, Dormammu's going to come right through that portal and end every life still burning in New York City. After that, oh, London, Paris, Seoul, and everywhere else that's still holding out. See, this isn't a speed bump, Shellhead." Reaper's grin stretched across his face now, his chest beginning to swell with pride. "I'm not the same Grim Reaper you've fought before. That man is gone. I'm much, much more. Godlike power runs through my blood. I'm not just Death, Avengers. I'm your downfall."

"Better than you have tried, Reaper. And none have succeeded," Captain America proclaimed. "Where you bring darkness, we shine the light. Where you proclaim death holds sway, we hold life most dear. But mainly, Reaper...you're a slave. A slave to Dormammu and his wish to control this planet by any means necessary. And as Iron Man said, the Avengers have triumphed over tougher odds, and we will again."

"And I'll put SHIELD up against you and some tin-pot deity any day of the damn week," Colonel Nick Fury added between gritted teeth.

"Hmm...and what say you, Osborn? Where is your..." Reaper stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes widened as he stared in Osborn's direction. "Where...where is he?"

Norman Osborn and the Trapster had vanished. Neither of them was visible as I slowly craned my neck to look behind us. SHIELD officers were keeping back the first throngs of civilians, who had expected to be safe on Long Island by now. But between them and us was nothing but empty lawn.

"No...no! No! Osborn! Where are you!"

"Forget about him, Eric." Wonder Man's voice was cold, no emotion, no pity. "This ends now. You end now."

"No! I did not come all this way to let the man who murdered me escape! Once I have my revenge upon you Avengers, I'll hunt Osborn down and hand him over to Dormammu myself! BARONS! TO ME!"

The portal rippled again. First stepped a long-haired brunette, wearing a two-piece bronze set of armor that looked like a stripper's outfit, blood dripping from a deep vertical cut on her left wrist. She was followed by a black-haired man in a blue outfit, with an aura of flames surrounding the back of his head, like a football player's backboard. Behind him came a grinning Black Talon, his head completely reformed and unmarked, coming out side-by-side Oriental man with a large cut across his throat and a skin-tight black outfit with gray wrappings. As the four of them lined up behind the Grim Reaper, something flew out from the top of the portal. I caught a glimpse of silver wings and green metal passing overhead, before the final figure stepped from the portal. He passed through the four previous passengers to stand next to the Grim Reaper. Electricity crackled around his body, more than I had ever seen him handle at one time.

"Well, ain't this a party, Herman," Electro snarked, staring right at me from behind red eyes intertwined with lightning. "Who would have thought a schlub like you and a schlub like would be standing next to the Avengers and the man who killed the world? Power to the freakin' people."

"The time has come to start the final cleansing." Reaper's scythe pointed directly at his brother, Wonder Man, who responded by cracking his knuckles in his hands. "And the first to fall will be Earth's mightiest heroes! FOR DORMAMMU!"

"FOR DORMAMMU," they chanted behind him. "FOR DORMAMMU! FOR DORMAMMU! FOR DORMAMMU!"

Captain America lifted his shield into the air. He belted out that famous cry, the one that, for years, told the good guys help was on the way and informed the bad guys that they were completely screwed.

"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"

Well, I wasn't going to be left out. But, when you're standing next to a guy yelling "Avengers Assemble" in a non-ironic manner, well...you end up with the following.

"Hey, Reaper, listen up! You see this?" I lifted my vibro-smasher into the air. "This...is my BOOMFIST!"

FWOOSH!

And so began the end of the whole mess.


	34. Ruiner

Reaper spun, easily catching my blast on his scythe. Which left him wide open, as Captain America's thrown shield caught him square in the chest.

"Pair up," Captain American yelled as he plucked the returning shield out of mid-air. "And don't hold back! Fury, get those civilians back!"

"Don't worry," Fury said as he scrambled to pick his plasma pistol back up from where he had dropped it, "my soldiers are already...OW!"

Faster than I would have thought, the older Oriental man stood over Fury, his foot grinding the Colonel's hand and the plasma pistol into the ground. "Firearms," the man said, his voice gurgling from the rush of air through the wide cut on his neck. "How impersonal."

Even as I fired a blast at the Oriental man, he was dodging, just getting out of the way. "I'm all for impersonal, pal. I don't even know your name."

My next blast, the man just waved his hand, and the vibrating air disappeared right before his palm. "Then allow me to introduce myself, Shocker. My name is Chondu. Chondu the Mystic, at your servi..."

"No names, pal." Fury shoved the plasma pistol into Chondu's stomach. The resulting blast of blue energy erupted out of Chondu's lower back, causing him to cry out in pain. My level-two caught him in the face, smacking it to the side, but instantly, he whipped it back around, his red eyes filled with cold anger. A high knee drove Fury back to the ground. Not even looking at the fallen SHIELD commander, Chondu's hands whipped around, one hand tucked to his chest, the other face me, palm out.

"As I was saying, Chondu the Mystic, at your service. How would you like to reach the next cycle today? Chi strike, or direct removal of your heart?"

Great. Martial artist. You never know what you were going to get when you went up against one of these guys. Normally, anyone who busted out a kung-fu pose either had watched way too much "Walker, Texas Ranger." Sometimes, you got a guy who was trained at one of those strip mall dojos you see advertised before the movie starts. And, rarely, you get a guy like Batroc the Leaper or Mister X, who can wipe the floor with an entire bar without breaking a sweat.

Worst of all, you snag yourself a genuine "Thirty-Seven Chambers" Buddhist who knows the secrets of moving mountains without lifting a finger. With a name like Chondu the Mystic, I was probably fighting a guy who could kill me just by blinking his eye in the general direction of my pancreas.

So, instead of answering his question, I fired a wide spread of vibro-blasts, shimmering the space between us. Chondu waved his palm again, from left to right, and just as with my initial attack, the vibrating air simply disappeared. But, by doing so, the bastard just left his left side open, and I snapped off a level-one that caught him in the side. Off-balance, Chondu couldn't defend himself from a level-two that slammed into his ribs. My third shot, however, he managed to pull the old "pluck a vibration from mid-air" trick, immediately striking the kung-fu pose again. "Interesting," he said as I kept my fists up. "Your gloves allow you to palm strike from a distance. It's a shame you don't put any of yourself into your attacks."

"Pal, I built these things myself. It's like the blind ninja who carves out his own sword...or something. I gotta ask, though...the slit throat. What's up with that?"

Chondu smiled, causing the wound on his neck to open as the muscles stretched. "When Dormammu called, I answered the best way I knew how, by attempting to ascend to the next stage of existence. But my efforts were premature. I was brought back in this shell of a body, but Dormammu has seen fit to bless me with his gifts. When I finally ascend, I'll be one step closer to perfection."

"Great. Let me help you along your path, Buddha."

This time, Chondu simply ducked underneath my blasts, closing the distance between us before I could react. The contact plates in my chest deflected most of his blow, but I found myself flat on my back, his foot grinding into my sternum. "Too easy," Chondu said as he towered over me. It felt like he was trying to shove his foot through my ribcage. "Electro told me you were a threat of some sort, Shocker."

"Yeah..." I managed to gasp out as my hands tried to shove his foot away. "You probably should have listened a little bit closer to that dim bulb."

"Really? And why is that?"

"Because he'd tell you the last thing in the world you'd want to do with me. Don't let me have a free shot as your balls." I whipped my hand away from his ankle as the level-three fired. At this range, I didn't even have to aim. The blast slammed him away from me, knocking him backwards. I don't care if you're a proto-zombie/mystical-undead creature. The pain Chondu felt upon landing didn't compare to the agony in his testicles. He rolled on the ground, holding himself.

"That ain't quite fair, Shocker," I heard Fury say as he got to his feet behind me. "Kicking a man in the balls."

"Fair? Where the hell is written I have to fight fair, Colonel?"

Chondu was slow to get back to his feet at Fury took aim. "Don't even..." he warned the

Mystic. When Chondu didn't stop, Fury just sighed, and let loose with a flurry of plasma blasts from his pistol. The plasma ripped through Chondu's body...and didn't bother him one bit as the martial artist got back to his feet. Even as the energy tore holes in Chondu, the wounds knitted right back up, flesh reforming and folding over itself.

"Damn it," Fury said as the gaping hole in Chondu's thigh closed back up, an invisible surgeon stitching the wound closed, "I liked it better when we could actually use firearms against zombies."

"I'm not a zombie, Colonel." Chondu looked down as the final hole in his body sealed itself back up, sounding like an old man slurping soup as the flesh pulled back together. "I'm a little more enlightened than that. Come. I'll be happy to show you." He whipped his head around, adopting the martial artist stance once again for a moment, before throwing himself through the air as Fury, his foot leading the way...

Fury's hand snapped around Chondu's ankle, and the martial artist found himself flung to the ground by the old war dog. "Chondu," Fury said as Chondu looked up with anger on his face, "I've fought better martial artists than you while hung over. I might not be able to blow holes in your body, but I'll be happy to see if broken bones heal like burned skin."

"So be it, Colonel." Without using his hands, Chondu kipped up to his feet, landing with perfect grace. "Even a barbarian like you is spoken in whispers among the dark corners..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a living God damn legend." Fury threw himself at Chondu, the Mystic barely avoiding the jab. They squared off, Fury's hands loose in front of him, Chondu in a fighting stance.

I raised my gloves, intent on blasting Chondu to give Fury an initial advantage, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Looks like you lost your dance partner, Herman," a crackling voice said. "Mind if I cut in?"

Spinning around, a level-three smashed Electro right into the face. I pushed away from him, two more blasts leaving my gloves. Electro greeted the attacks with laughter as I quickly put distance between me and him. Bolts of lightning slithered around him like a school of eels, and even small arcs of electricity leapt to and fro in the streams of blood weeping from the gunshot wounds in his chest. "Last time, Herman, I sucked all the juice out of your gloves...I think this time, I'll let you keep it. It's so much better when you hand over all your power willingly...although tearing it from you without you being able to do anything about it has its perks..."

Blink.

I lowered my gloves, shaking my head at what I had just heard. "Ok, Max? I know you're walking on air right now and think you're commanding awe-inspiring power...but man, that was just REALLY freakin' gay, what you just said."

Electro, lightning dancing in his fist, cocked his head to the side. "What? What did you say?"

"Look, I don't have a problem with that. I'm cool if that's the way you swing, Max, but I'm asking as a former friend...just knock that stuff off. It's creeping me the hell out. You want to try and kick my ass, just go ahead and kick it. Save the innuendo."

After a second of thought, Electro barked a short, crackling laugh. "Well. It looks like I finally rattled that cool, calm exterior you've tried so hard to create for yourself. As long as I've touched that exposed nerve, Herman, allow me to set the record straight...no pun intended. I'm actually AC/DC. I go both ways."

"Huh. You know...that's kind of surprising." I crossed my arms, staring right at the Villain of Voltage. "You could go after anybody, male or female, in New York City, and STILL never had a date on Saturday night!"

"You're channeling Spider-Man now, Herman, with those inane quips?"

"Hey, Max, now I think I get why you had such a hard-on for the wall-crawler. Young body, all those sticky webs...ew. I think I just threw up in my mouth."

"Enough!" Electro stepped forward, a trail of sparks thrown up in his wake. "I look forward to cramming lightning down your throat!"

I just shrugged before bringing my gloves up. "Since you never know who's listening, I'm not a homophobe."

"I don't care, Herman," Electro snapped.

"Oh, I know. I just wanted it on the record that I only said those things because I took a page out of Boomerang's book and distracted you. Again."

Electro paused in mid-step. Man...it's really the little things that matter in life. The slow realization and the dawning of the "oh, crap" look on his face really made things worthwhile for that split-second before a stone hammer slammed into his ribs. Electro flew sideways, arcing through the air, his passage marked by the sparks drifting to the ground.

"You declare yourself a God of Lightning? Then stand and face the God of Thunder!" Thor raised his hammer over his head as Electro slammed to the grass. I watched as Electro climbed back to his feet, wobbling, but still pulsing with energy.

"Days ago, I would have pissed my pants at the very thought of crossing paths with you, Thor. But now..." Electro's lips pulled back as he found the guts to sneer at the Avenger. "...but now, I welcome it. I'm still looking for the upper limit on my capacity. You'll make a damn good test, Avenger."

"Jesus," I muttered. "Of all the damn weeks for Electro to get self-confidence."

"I believe Ms. Marvel said the same thing about thou, Herman." Thor squared his shoulders as he faced the human dynamo across the field. "Come. If Electro wishes to prove himself, it is up to us to make sure he's found wanting."

"Yeah," I said as I walked, stride-to-massive-stride, with Thor towards the electricity wielder. "Let's walk right up to an undead Electro, who's throwing around lightning like it's a bunch of streamers, and prove him wrong. This is a good idea...but then again," I realized, "doing this is, what, just another Thursday to you, huh?"

"Mondays, actually. Thursdays tend to be alien invasions," Thor replied. Was he joking with me, or telling the truth? Hey, whatever reason, it distracted me from the very stupid plan of actually walking UP to Electro and beating the hell out of him. By the time I realized just what I was doing, Electro was coming to meet us. Too late to turn back now.

"Come on, Thor. Make me famous, you blonde haired throwback," Electro growled.

"As you wish!" Thor raced forward, hammer leading the way, as Electro dashed towards him. Throwing his hands out, Electro threw two lightning bolts at the Avenger. They streaked towards Thor, but at the last minute, turned in mid-air, arcing towards Mjolnir and disappearing into the stone hammer. Before Electro could recover, Thor was in his face, slamming his shoulder into Max before swinging Mjlonir and catching Electro as he was off-balance. Electro skidded to the side, struggling to keep his balance, as Thor followed up...only for Electro to spin around and blast him with a bolt from short range, the energy arcing from his fingers into Thor's chest. With a grunt, Thor staggered backwards, but managed to catch Electro's next attack on his weapon.

"Thou are indeed more powerful than I expected," Thor acknowledge, brushing at the scorch mark on his blue armor.

"Yeah, well, I ain't your Daddy's Electro anymore." Electro launched an attack, a flurry of lightning and punches, driving forward at Thor. At first, Thor easily knocked aside each attack, swatting them out of the air like bugs. "You know," Electro mocked Thor even as the Avenger ducked under a round-a-house, "you call yourself the God of Thunder...and you swing that hammer around...I wonder..."

Electro's next attack didn't go for Thor...but instead, Electro's hand snaked out and wrapped itself around the shaft of Mjolnir. From my vantage point of staying well out of range (let's be honest, throwing myself in the middle would have done more harm to Thor than to Electro), Electro looked like he was sticking his finger into a open socket. His body jerked for a moment, but suddenly, his other hand wrapped around the weapon as well. "...I wonder," he said, his voice chattering like he was a normal human being getting electrocuted, "if I can borrow some of that hammer's power..."

"Thou are not worthy to wield this weapon," Thor bellowed, "nor the energies within!"

"Yeah, well, the mystical energy I got pouring through me from Dormammu says otherwise, Avenger. Let's see how I deal with yours..." Electro flared suddenly. I had to shield my eyes for a moment before the tinted lenses in my mask kicked in. Even with the protection, I still couldn't stare directly at Electro. The field of electricity around him shone with a bright white energy, and the air crackled like I was standing in the heart of a electric generator.

"So...beautiful..." I heard Electro say. "And it's mine, Thor...all mine..."

"Nay!" With a loud cry, Thor ripped Mjolnir away from Electro's grip.

"Too late...you don't know what I'm packing now...actually, here, let me show you!" For a second, Electro's aura disappeared, the bright white cutting away to nothingness, just before all that energy sliced through the air, slamming into Thor. It enveloped him, and I could hear a sharp cry of pain as he was knocked backwards. He hit the ground, rolling from the impact before coming to a stop, face-down...unmoving.

"Wow..." Electro was wobbling slightly on his feet, trying to keep his balance. The aura of electricity that had surrounded him was gone, leaving nothing but the green-and-yellow costume and the bullet holes in the front. "That was..."

A level-three, right to the side of his face. I fired again as I approached, rocking him backwards. He staggered, cursing loudly, as I brought up both hands and gave him twin blasts to his chest. Those knocked him down to the ground, and even then, I kept firing at him. "Looks like you blew your wad, Max," I mocked as the lawn exploded around him, the edges of my blasts throwing up chunks of dirt into the air.

Blindly, he threw a bolt of lightning at me. It came too close for comfort, causing me to flinch. It was enough time for Electro to take aim, and fire off a more accurate attack, catching me in the shoulder. My nerves tingled for a moment, causing me to stumble. "You don't think I have a reserve tank, Herman," he said as, on his knees, he threw more energy my way, which I barely managed to avoid by diving to the side. "That's always been your problem. You think you're so smart and clever, that you're the most brilliant guy in the room." The aura was quickly regenerating around him, giving Electro a pale yellow glow. "No one else could be as clever as you, no one else could have a plan that was better than yours. You always pretended, with your ridiculous limits and morals, that you were somehow superior to the rest of us common thugs. No wonder your best friends were a retard and a drunkard. They fed your superiority complex!"

"Me? A superiority complex? We went to the same freakin' therapist, Max!" I fired off a blast as I ducked one of his lightning bolts. It still caught me, sizzling my upper arm, but my blast managed to knock the wind out of Electro, or would of if he still breathed. "My problem, Max, is that you tried to kill me!"

"So did the Punisher, but that didn't stop you from having Boomerang cut him down!"

The bolt of lightning Electro flung my way caught me in the leg. The muscles underneath spasmed, causing me to fall to the ground. A level-two kept Electro honest and at a distance, though, as I tried to recover. "Well, if you weren't working for the guy who's trying to bring about the end of the world, I wouldn't be fighting you!"

"That proves the other thing about you, Herman. On the losing side, again. If it isn't Spider-Man getting the better of you..."

"Hey, Max," I interrupted, "I got a better track-record against Spider-Man than you do!"

Alright. I could stand here and throw barbs and vibro-blasts at Electro all day, but that's not going to solve a damn thing. He's just regenerating all the power he threw at Thor, while I'm wasting juice throwing level-threes out just to make him notice. I couldn't think of anything else that could stop him, though. It used to be water, but in the bank, the fire hose and the broken sink's spray didn't do jack but give Electro more room to make fun of me. That aura of electricity just vaporized the water before it got to him...

So just overload him then.

I was so used to working on my own, or with Aleksei, that I forgot I had someone else. Someone a lot more powerful, and a lot stronger than me. And he was beginning to get back to his feet. My blasts couldn't hurt Max, so I shifted my fire, throwing several level three-blasts into the ground as Max's feet. The initial blasts threw chunks of dirt into the air, the next couple turned it all into small chunks, and the final wave of attacks pulverized the chunks into smaller bits. The dirt got into Electro's face, and he cursed while rubbing the dust from his eyes. That was the distraction I needed, and I damn near sprinted to where Thor was getting back to his feet. "Hey, Thor, I got a plan. Are you ok?"

"Aye," the Avenger said as he accepted my outstretched hand. His grip was still strong as I helped him to his feet. "I am afraid, however, that we may have a problem."

I couldn't hold back the laugh. "At this point, what's another?"

"Be serious," and instantly, I was. "I do not know how, but Electro has absorbed energy from Mjolnir. The electricity he smote me was composed of that energy. Even now, I can sense it still in his body, even after the discharge. His attacks may now be tinged with magic."

"Crap. Let me guess. That means he can really hurt you now, like how the Wrecker and his magic crowbar smacked you around."

"Aye."

"Alright..that doesn't change a thing." I pointed with one hand, towards the glistening waters of the Jackie Onassis Reservoir. "I grab Electro, you grab the two of us, and together, we throw him in the lake. He might be able to disperse a high-pressure water spray, but I'm willing to bet an entire damn reservoir will short him out entirely." I thumped my quilted armor lightly. "Between my armor's insulation and your hammer acting like a lightning rod, we should be able to contain him long enough to get him underwater."

"A solid plan," Thor nodded. "Will thou be able to stand his lightning, however?"

"I have no idea," I replied, "but it's worth a damn shot."

"Aye." Thor and I turned back towards Electro. The lightning arcing around him now seemed to hold tinges of white, flashing with each circuit across his body. "Let us make haste."

"That's right," Electro cried as, side-by-side, the two of us charged at him, my dumb ass taking the lead by a few steps. "Keep bringing it, you two!"

"Shut...up!" I threw myself at Electro, arms wide to embrace him. Even before I body checked him, the first shocks were hitting my body, like sticking your tongue onto the leads of a 9-volt. I managed to lock my arms around him, though, before the spasms got unbearable, pinning one arm against his side.

"What are you...let me go!" His free hand pounded against my back. The contact plates managed to deflect most of the blow, but one of my deltoids contracted, seizing up my back and causing me to scream, like getting a Charlie Horse on your shoulder. But as soon as Thor, running past him, grabbed Electro by the scruff of his neck, the shocks lessened, as the majority of the electricity arced to Thor's hammer. A few more steps, and then we were airborne, Mjolnir leading the way, lightning flashing from Electro's body to the mystical hammer. I reached up as best I could, trying to grapple Electro's other arm. Grabbing it was like trying to grab a live wire, but my suit's insulation held as I gripped his forearm, keeping him from tossing lightning at Thor.

We skimmed the ground, fifteen feet in the air by my reckoning. The shortest distance between us and the water was a straight line, and Thor was abiding by the laws of geometry, not wasting a single moment. Electro struggled against my grip, his hand trying to grab me to send a direct current into my body. My suit did its job, keeping the stray bolts and their charge down to a minimum. My big concern was actually keeping hold of Electro so I didn't go falling to the ground until the very last minute...and that minute approached in a matter of seconds, as the edge of the reservoir, well lit by a series of floodlights, appeared in the distance. Closing my eyes, I unwrapped my arms, and gravity instantly took over as I fell away from Electro and Thor. I hit the ground shoulder first, rolling with the impact as best I could. I came to a stop near the water's edge, coming up on my elbows, trying to catch sight of Thor.

It was impossible to miss, a trail of sparks arcing into the air. Thor brought Electro over the deepest part of the reservoir. The two were surrounded by electricity, doing their best impersonation of ball lightning as Electro continued to generate voltage. For a moment, the pair hovered in place, a bright will'o'wisp over the dark water, before they suddenly dove down. The light turned into a glaring flash, with a large geyser of water erupting from the reservoir, Thor drove Electro into the waters of the Jackie Onassis Reservoir. A loud, sizzling pop filled the air as the two of them disappeared under the surface. I climbed to my feet, peering over the large waves created by the impact. Where the God of Thunder and the Villain of Voltage had disappeared into the murky depths, there was nothing but darkness. That had to be a good sign, I thought. Otherwise, there'd be some kind of glow, some kind of light from underwater.

So...now what did I do? Do I sit here and wait for someone to come back out? If Thor came crawling back out of the water, than we'd be in damn good shape. If it was Electro, though...well, then I was fresh out of ideas on how to deal with him. And he'd probably focus solely on me with Thor out of the picture. And that was a fight I was going to lose.

Heroes don't run away. That's what I always called heroes dumb. But now...screw it, I was outmatched. And back the way I came, the Avengers were fighting. Safety in numbers. Teamwork, I told myself as I turned away. Thor would understand. Damn it, I was rationalizing, but standing here if Electro shot out the water was pure suicide.

I could make out the bright red portal shimmering across the Great Lawn, and used it to orient myself. I ran towards it, jogging as quickly as I could in my suit. Even from this distance, I could make out the sounds of battle, along with the occasional blue flash or yellow streak of energy. Alright, so I show back up...I had hurt Chondu before, if he hadn't killed Fury...no, no, positive thoughts. If Fury had kicked Chondu's teeth in, which was the more likely scenario, then we could go after someone else. Reaper? The lady in the bronze bikini that was fighting Ms. Marvel? I could get in the middle of that...focus, Herman, focus.

Yeah. So intent on that split second image of Nekra and Ms. Marvel going at it, I missed the form gliding down beside me. It matched speed with me, wings outstretched, whistling through the air. "Hello, Herman," the Vulture cried, before steering into me, knocking me off-stride and sending me sprawling to the ground. "I'm so glad," Toomes cackled as he swung up to hover in the air in front of me, "that you managed to survive this long. Let Electro handle Thor. You and I have unfinished business, and now it's my turn to extract a pound of flesh."

"I thought human Toomes was ugly, Adrian, but undead you really takes the cake!"

"Hah!" Vulture swooped away from my level-three blasts. My gloves were still at about 50% capacity, but I couldn't afford to waste energy trying to hit Adrian. I was running a damn gauntlet tonight as Adrian flung a steel quill at my feet that I barely avoided, stepping backwards as it embedded itself in the soil. "Look at you, Shocker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run across the park. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal being?"

"Tell you what, find one and we'll talk!" I fire a wide-spread, trying to clip the Vulture, but I only winged him, the metal extension easily shrugging off my blasts.

"You got lucky last time, Herman! It took an entire fire escape to ground me. This time, you have nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide!" Another steel quill headed my way, but as I dodged, Vulture anticipated my motion. He drove into me, shoulder first, before swooping up into the air. I grabbed at him, managing to get a hold of his metal harness, as he flew through the air like a missile. The ground retreated below us, this time a lot further than six or seven stories. We left Central Park behind, well above the treetops...and almost to the level of the apartment buildings surrounding the park.

"Damn it, Adrian," I yelled, finding some false bravado as I clung to his armor, "find a new trick! This dropping me from great heights is old!"

"You know me, Herman! I like to stick to the classics!" Higher, and higher, and higher. I could feel the cold seeping into my armor as the Vulture took us well above his old flight ceiling. All I could do was hold on...and hold on...

He suddenly came to a halt. I felt the tips of his steel talons dig into my neck as he grabbed me by the throat. With strength I never knew Adrian had, he pushed me away from him. Instantly, I felt gravity pull on my entire body, 9.8 m/s worth of it trying to bring me back down to Earth. Only the iron grip of the Vulture kept me from plummeting, the fingers cutting off the circulation. I clutched at his arm with both hands, trying to keep a hold of him.

"Look below you, Herman. Manhattan. The heart of New York City. The heart of the United States. The heart of the entire world. I can see it, all of it. Manhattan's a patchwork of lights. New Jersey burns. Brooklyn and Queens are dark. And beyond that, Herman, America. Which couldn't put up the fight the Avengers, the Initative, and the criminals did. Boston. Chicago. Los Angeles. Pittsburgh. San Antonio. This country is dead, Herman. And the rest of the world as well."

My legs kicked, looking for purchase anything, even the damn air molecules, as he continued. "I win, Herman. Years of fighting Spider-Man, years of fighting the Maggia, fighting the stroke that crippled me. Years of being an old man in a young man's game. It all goes back to when my business partner cheated me. All those threads, all intertwining and leading me to this very point. I win. And you lose. Goodbye, Herman. I'd like to say it's been fun, but really, it's been more of an inconvenience. Know that you've done your best against the forces that have allied against you, but in the end, your best just wasn't good enough."

"Then let me leave you with something to remember me by, Adrian!" I pulled my hand away from his forearm and shoved it right in his face, firing off a level three centimeters from his nose. The pressure wave rippled across his burned, oily skin, tearing the hole in his cheek wide open.

The pinpoints of pain left my neck as Adrian let go, shrieking in pain. At least I could take that small moment of triumph to the grave. There really wasn't even enough oxygen for me to scream as I felt myself plummeting towards Manhattan, spinning in mid-air to face...

"Vulture," a female voice said as one arm plucked me out of mid-air, "you have no idea what kind of forces you are talking about."

She had me by one arm, lifting me up and now holding me by my hip. A blonde goddess, my guardian angel at this moment in time, Ms. Marvel looked up at the Vulture, twenty feet above us, as I managed not to pee my pants, gulping for oxygen as she spoke. "And one of the rules of those forces is someone always has your back."

Fluid weeped from his face as the Vulture glared at my savoir. "Really? Isn't this something? The common criminal plucked out of the sky by the fat whore," Vulture mocked. "And who watches your back? You need one arm to keep Schultz from plummeting to the Earth, Ms. Marvel, and I'm very confident of my ability to beat you with one arm tied behind your back!"

Beep.

"Target acquired," a robotic voice spoke from Adrian Toomes. Before Toomes could spin in mid-air to face his new adversary, the energy beam slammed into the metal harness, propelling the Vulture forward. A second beam slammed into him, and a third.

"So, you fancy yourself a flyer." Hovering with ease, his arm aimed squarely at the Vulture, the silver-and-black form of MACH-IV locked in on the Vulture. "Let's see how good you are."

"Beetle! A new suit does not make you worth my time," the Vulture cried.

MACH-IV responded. Rather, his suit responded, as a panel on his shoulder slid open. A small device popped out, painting the Vulture with a red laser square in the middle of his armor. "The suit? No. The man inside it? Maybe. The laser-designator for a whole bunch of mini-missiles? Definitely. Get Herman to safety, Ms. Marvel. I'll ground this bird."

Part of me really wanted to see the Vulture and MACH-IV throw down, the better, saner part of me wanted down, as quickly and as safely as possible. The Vulture spread his wings, and suddenly dove for the deck. Instantly, MACH-IV was right behind him, following him, arms tucked at his sides, a sleek missile cutting through the air. "Kick his ass, Abner," I yelled after him.

"Hold on, Herman," Ms. Marvel said, grabbing me with her other hand and helping me onto her back as we hovered what-felt-like-miles above Manhattan. "Grab onto my shoulders and I'll get you down."

"Roger."

After a few seconds...

"Herman, those aren't my shoulders."

"Oh, right."

A few more seconds.

"You can let go of them now."

"Sorry."

X

"What's that?" I pointed off into the distance, towards the east side of the park. "Do you see it?"

"Yeah," Ms Marvel said as we cleared about five hundred feet. "Can't miss it. And I'm willing to bet, it isn't good." She gently pulled up, leveling off into a gentle descent as we headed towards it. "We better go investigate. Ms. Marvel to Iron Man, I got what could be a magical disturbance off Columbus Avenue. Taking the Shocker to go check it out."

"Are they going to be alright without you, back at the portal?"

"MACH-IV can take my place once he's done with the Vulture. This is a lot more important, especially if it ties into the Grim Reaper's scheme."

'It' was a shimmering curtain of blood red light, wavering gently as if being blown by an easy breeze. It hung from the sky just behind the Museum of Natural History, above Columbus Avenue, stretching the entire block. The barricades that surrounded Central Park, I noticed as we descended, had been lengthened in this area, encompassing the entire block that the museum sat on.

"What happened there," I asked, pointing over her shoulder at the area.

"SHIELD used the museum as one of the main checkpoints. Everyone in New York knows where that museum is, and it's big. We handled the first rush of refugees no problem." We were still over the park, but I could see, over the top of the barricades, the horde of zombies pushing and pounding, trying to get inside. They were five or six rows deep along the street, shoving against one another. It was a disorganized mob that craved entrance into the safe haven of Central Park, a mob that didn't would break under low morale or be affected by tear gas. If they got inside...

"Tell me SHIELD has a plan if those things get inside," I called out to Ms. Marvel.

"Lots and lots of bullets and plasma rounds," she replied, not exactly filling me with confidence as we passed over the museum. "The portal was supposed to work," she said as we came to a landing about twenty feet from the curtain, "and massive firepower was just a back-up plan."

The curtain made no noise as it gently wavered in front of us. It hung back, about five feet from the plasteel barricade that separated us from the angry dead. Their cries and moans, from such a close distance, made me shiver. "That noise...I don't know if I'm ever going to forget it, for as long as I live," Ms. Marvel told me. "It's like...they know what they have to do, but they don't want to do it.'

"That about sums it up." Reaching down to the ground, I picked up a smooth stone from the lawn. The curtain stretched above us with no visible means of support as I reared back and hurled the rock forward. When it reached the red energy, it simple vanished, a small ripple radiating outwards. "You think it's a portal," I asked.

"It doesn't look like the one Doc Strange opened. I'm calling it in. Ms. Marvel to Iron Man, I'm at the Museum of Natural History with the Shocker. There's some kind of energy field here, just at the barricade with Columbus Avenue. No, it's not doing anything, it's just..."

"Wait," I said as the barricade suddenly became a bit brighter.

"Hold one," Ms. Marvel said as the barricade shimmered. No ripples appeared, but the curtain appeared to move, waves lapping in a vertical and horizontal manner. "The energy field is moving. It looks like it's away from us, towards..."

The curtain gently lapped against the barricade for a brief moment, and then it was gone. Along with the barricade. And in its place, not wasting a single second, a thousand angry zombies poured through the open gap. They rolled over each other, like angry ants, the ones in the very front falling to the ground as their brethren behind them shoved, pushing them over and walking over the dead bodies. The gray-white barricade that had dominated their sight had been replaced by a buxom blonde and a guy in brown-and-yellow armor. A thousand pairs of hands reached out for us, a cry of hunger and need filling the air. Rotting skin, flaking flesh, pale eyes, both arms, one arm, no arms. Perfect clothing, blood stained shirts, ripped dresses.

"Oh, crap!" That was my astute analysis of the situation as a horde of cannibals marched towards me. And yes, I know, nitpickers, they're not cannibals. Cannibalism in the true sense of the word implies an interspecies activity. These creatures cannot be considered human. They prey on humans. They do not prey on each other, that's the difference. They attack and they feed only on warm human flesh. Like the kind that adorned my bones. I raised my gloves, and sent a level-two into the head of the closest zombie wearing the remnants of a Nets jersey. He fell backwards, surrounded by the horde that streamed around his body. One down. 9,999 to go.

"Herman, let's move!" Ms. Marvel spun me around, and I grabbed onto her shoulders again. We were airborne in an instant. Below us, some of the zombies reached into the sky, grabbing futilely at us. But the rest of them kept moving, a glacier slowly pushing forward, lurching onto the green fields surrounding the Museum.

"Breach! We got a barricade breach, down at the Natural Museum of History," Ms. Marvel spoke into her communicator. "At least a thousand zombies..."

"Look." We were flying to the north, giving me a clear view of the barricades lining Central Park West. The zombies along the sidewalks weren't pounding at the barricades anymore. En masse, they had turned, and were now shuffling south. Not one still clawed at the obstructions. "They know there's an opening."

"...and we're gonna have a lot more. Fury, if you're there, we're gonna need every single piece of hardware SHIELD's got to stop this one."

"You heard the lady!" Through the communicator, I heard Fury's voice, tinged with weariness starting to bark orders. "Get those civilians towards the reservoir, and the second the Avengers get that portal open, I want them through! Everyone else, set up a firing line along West Drive. I want every single person who can handle a firearm on that line! Ms. Marvel, you're in charge. Hold that damn position!"

Below us, we could see the beginnings of panic. The civilians who had been waiting for the instructions to walk through Doctor Strange's portal and reach safety on Long Island now saw SHIELD soldiers running towards West Drive. And the moans, that was the kicker. Put simply, the civilians broke. Some followed orders, and headed north towards the reservoir. Some simply to the east, away from the oncoming horde. And some ran south, towards the empty spaces of the park where the barricades haven't broken.

"This is going to be a massacre...there's nowhere for anyone to escape to. Damn it, Osborn, this is exactly why no one with brains came to your little rescue station," I cursed into the darkness.

The zombie horde kept streaming north. They were stumbling past the museum, heading towards the 79th Street Traverse. One large column of the undead...with a few stragglers. A few zombies (relatively speaking) peeled off at the sounds of panicky citizens heading south, distracted by the fleeting chance at human flesh in the distance. They kept moving, lurching to the north, where the bulk of the citizens of New York City were fleeing.

Ms. Marvel set us down just passed the Traverse. Even in the nighttime darkness, I could see the first vanguard of zombies in the far distance, coming out of the trees and heading right for us. To either side, SHIELD soldiers hastily set up barricades, turning over crates, cots, and anything they could use for a firing platform. Almost immediately, Ms. Marvel began barking orders. "YOU! Get those ammo crates up here, pronto! I'm going to need runners and reloaders! I want a steady stream of fire. And if anyone's got any grenades, get them up here, quickly!"

I started to pitch in, grabbing a nearby picnic table and shoving it against a makeshift barricade. Running crossed my mind. Escape? Impossible. Nearly impossible. I could run. I could make it back to the Dene, back down the escape hatch to the Punisher's arsenal, and figure it out from there. I could do it...

No. They was the old me. Besides...how many times have the Avengers pulled a miracle out of their collective asses? And it would have to be them, with Osborn and Petruski pulling a vanishing act. Damn it, Osborn. You wanted to draw out the big bad, and now that he's shown up, you're nowhere to be seen. And your dumb ass sent away all my friends, who had a whole bunch of firepower...

...

...

..."Do you have a cell phone?"

Ms. Marvel carefully set the box grenades down on the ground. "What?"

"A cell phone!"

"This is NO time for a personal..."

"I think I can get everyone back here. Doctor Octopus, Blizzard, Molecule Man. I can get them here, and we can blow that horde to kingdom come, but I need a cell phone!"

Ms. Marvel, after a second's hesitation, tossed her communicator at me. "I hope you know what you're doing, Herman. Alright, people, I got grenades here! If you got a throwing arm, grab some! And where the hell are those claymore mines? I asked for them fifteen seconds ago!"

He always had a cell phone. The man needed instant access to the Bookie at all times to place his bets. I hoped to Christ he still had it on him as I punched his number in. One perk about being a villain – we still memorized phone numbers instead of programming them into our phones and forgetting them. Our careers weren't condusive to the physical survival of cell phones...

A ring tone. I closed my eyes, mumbling a silent prayer as the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. "Come on, come on, co..."

Click. "Um...hello?"

"James? James! It's Herman!"

"Herman," came the surprised voice of Speed Demon on the other end of the phone. "What the hell...where the hell have you been? Are you alright? The Chameleon..."

"James, I don't have time. We're in Central Park and we're about to be overrun by a horde of zombies. I need to talk to Owen, right now!"

"Owen? Damn, he's across Denver, over in Aurora. One second." It was three seconds, actually, as the sound of rushing air filled the phone. "Alright, Herman, here you go."

"Herman?" Molecule Man sounded just a bit taken aback at hearing my voice. "I thought you were dead."

"I'm about to be! Look, I'm in Central Park, and the barricades are down. I got about two thousand hungry zombies marching in my direction, and me, Ms. Marvel, and SHIELD are all that's between them and a bunch of civilians! I need you guys to teleport back here, pronto!"

"That's impossible, Herman."

"What? Owen, you teleported everyone away, how hard can it be to teleport everyone back?"  
"I teleported everyone to Denver, Herman. This place is my home. It's my anchor. I have no anchors in New York City. Trying to teleport that much living matter stretched my limits, even with a point in hyperspace to focus on. It was a one-way trip at best."

"You've got to try, Owen! Without you guys, everyone here's probably going to become a three-piece KFC meal!"

"I need an anchor, Herman! Without one, I..."

Owen got quiet for a moment. I could hear someone else speaking to him. "What? No, it's too dangerous. I can't guarantee...I can't. If you...huh. I...yes. Yes. But it'll take time for all that to come to fruition. If we are to try this, it must be done right now. Alright. Stand ready. Herman, where are you right now? Be exact."

"Um...I'm on West Drive...if I look to the south, I can see Belvedere Castle."

"That will have to do. Look for a portal." The phone call was disconnected from Molecule Man's end.

"Ms. Marvel! Molecule Man's sending help," I called over. She didn't respond as she manhandled a crate into place. The zombies were closing still, unwavering. I could pick out individual ones in the mob, before I ripped my glance from the creeping death. I looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the black nothingness that Molecule Man had warned me about. It took a few seconds, but there, almost directly parallel to me, a void of darkness hung in the air. I readied myself, expecting Molecule Man to come first, or maybe Speed Demon...

What came wasn't at all what I expected.

"Ooof," he squeaked as he slammed into the ground chest first. Behind him, the portal snapped shut, disappearing from reality without a sound. "Wow. That was eternity in there. Longer than you think, Dad. It's longer than you think."

"You're it? You're the help?"

"Damn right I am! Trust me, I'm about to salvage this entire thing!" He hopped to his feet, and put a hand out to me. "We haven't met. I'm Wade Wilson, private investigator. I'm a dick."

He wore a red-and-black full body outfit, complete with a ridiculous number of pouches scattered along his belt. On his back were twin swords and two assault rifles. On his hip hung four pistols. And across his chest were slung a whole bunch of grenades. I looked him up and down, jaw dropping. "You're the only guy he sent?"

"Hey, Herman, it's dramatically appropriate AND good for your reviews that I showed up by myself. Didn't you hear that Molecule Man has a plan? And aren't all plans made up of molecules anyway? Have some faith! Just because there's no more room in Hell and the dead are walking the Earth doesn't mean you should just toss faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster out the window!"

"Deadpool?" Ms. Marvel's voice echoed above the din as SHIELD continued to work around here. "Molecule Man sent us Deadpool? I thought he was your friend, Herman!"

"Don't worry, Blondie. I ain't here just to pop a buyrate. I'm actually here for a purpose! You just don't get to find out until later on in the story...so you'll just have to keep reading to find out what it is, won't you, true believers? Nuff said. Hey, listen, while I'm here monologing and have a soapbox..."

"Deadpool," Ms. Marvel proclaimed, "you're here to kill zombies!"

"Oh, yeah!"

BLAM BLAM BLAM!

Faster than possible, Deadpool's assault rifle was in his hand. In the shrinking distance, three zombies fell to the ground, unmoving as the horde swept over their fallen comrades. "I am here to kill zombies, and luckily for you, I'm all out of bubblegum!"

BLAM BLAM BLAM!

More zombies dropped to the lawn as somehow, this guy Deadpool scored headshots from long range. "But before I do, two things. One, does it bother anyone that the Notorious B.I.G. got this huge send off and outpouring of support when he croaked, but no one gave a damn about Jack Kirby's passing?"

BLAM BLAM BLAM!

"And two," he said in a voice that grated at my eyes, "Herman, you want to step about five feet to your left."

"Huh? Why," I asked, really really freakin' confused.

"Osborn's launching his counter attack, and it's a doozy. Just five feet, Herman. Trust me."

I humored the strange man. A few steps brought me closer to Ms. Marvel, as Deadpool took five steps to his right. "Alright, that should be good...any minute...any minute..." he said, craning his neck up to the night sky.

"What the hell..." was all I could get out before the ammo crates slammed into the ground. I barely held off a heart attack as the wooden packages cracked open from the impact, four of them, spilling golden belts of ammunition out onto the ground. "What the hell is that? Jesus!"

"Wrong god, Herman...wait for it...and...here it is. Deus ex machina. Literally."

He slammed into the ground like the fist of an angry god. The earth moved as he dropped to one knee, absorbing the energy of his free fall with ease. Remember earlier in the story when I was telling you what it was like to stand face-to-face with Thor? Well, the universe seemed to love the idea of me meeting with mystical beings, because here was another one.

"Great. First Deadpool, and now him," I heard Ms. Marvel say. "We just might have a shot at pulling this off after all," she said begrudgingly.

He stood up, not brushing the dirt off his knees. All muscle, he wore black studded armor, like a guy walking out of the Meat Packing District on Disco Night. The skull and crossed swords on his chestplace, though, told me he meant business, along with the wicked looking axe strapped to his back. This thing was so huge, to any other man but this piece of work, it would have been a two-handed halbred. On his head, an old school helmet. Really old school. I'm talking "Aristotle at the chalkboard" old, completely with a shock of white hair acting as a mohawk down the center. But hanging on his hips was the capstone to his entire outfit. And even after seeing everything I'd seen over the past week, I just couldn't believe it. I was with Ms. Marvel, in that we might...hell, if this worked, someone better get a damn picture of it, because I want visual proof of what's about to happen.

Glowing blue eyes stared out at the approaching zombie horde as the man finished chugging the can of Guinness in his hand, before crumpling it and whipping it towards the zombie horde. "I have arrived," the man said as the can, at an impossible distance, slammed into the forehead of an approaching ghoul, putting it back down for good. "Wilson. Schultz. You two shall watch the flanks. Ms. Marvel..."

The man I'd soon know as Ares, Greek God of War, hefted the two M61 Vulcans, one on each hip. "I need you to be my brace. The recoil on these things is impressive."

X

After a second of surprise, Ms. Marvel complied with his request. "Alright, I need ammo loaders! Those guns are going to chew through ammo like it's going out of style, and if they jam, we're in big trouble! Get your asses up here, and start organizing all this ammo!"

As the SHIELD soldiers scrambled over the pile of shining ammunition...well, I was staring, dumbfounded, at the sight before me. "Those...those are M61 Vulcan mini-guns," I stammered.

"Yes," Ares said. They were hanging from a metal harness (adamantium, I later found out) over the black leather.

"They put those on military aircraft," I said in amazement.

"Yes," he said again. He held down the triggers partway. With a loud whine, the barrels on both miniguns spun up, moving so fast that the six individual barrels blurred into one continuous motion.

"Those things put out FOUR THOUSAND rounds per minute," I exclaimed as my head tried not to explode.

"I know. They are not the most optimal weapons for this situation. But there weren't any GAU-12 Equalizers available for civilian use." Ares looked over his shoulder. "Move quickly. They will be upon us soon."

Ms. Marvel gave the line a final glance. Up and down West Drive, the barricades were as ready as they could be. SHIELD soldiers leaned against the crates and benches, their weapons taking aim as the horde. Some faces held resolve, while others held apprehension. Mine?

"I can't believe he's dual-wielding MINIGUNS," I said to the closest person. Which turned out to be Deadpool.

"I know. Can you believe it? You would think something like that would be incredibly unlikely. Zombies are serious business, man." Deadpool looked at the assault rifle clutched in his hands, and shrugged. "Oh, well. I pride myself on being an artist when it comes to killing. Let Ares cut down hundreds of those things at a time. Quality over quantity."

"Ares? As in 'the Greek God of War' Ares?"

"Yeah, Herman. Nice to see you stayed awake during English class! I never could. I know to speak English good, I ain't gonna bother with that!"

"Ares. Wow. I'm...I feel way out of my league..."

"Hey, Herman. You're standing here, right? You're fought side by side with the Avengers. Ms. Marvel plucked you out of mid-air AND let you cop an accidental feel. Ares is counting on you to watch his flank. And I haven't put a bullet into your brain. Far as I'm concerned, you earn the right to be here." Deadpool lifted his assault rifle into the air. "So, I'll keep watch on the left, you handle the right. Just watch your ass. Those damn things are sneaky when they want to be."

"Right..." I murmurred as Deadpool trotted behind Ares. The SHIELD soldiers were unspooling the large rounds of HE ammo, laying it out to the rear of Ares. Ms Marvel moved the barricades in front of him, giving him a clear line of fire, before moving behind him as well. Sh planted her foot in the ground, driving the heel and sole in, and put bother hands and her shoulder against the God of War.

"Ready when you are, Ares," she said, gritting her teeth in anticipation.

"Aye. Stand fast, Ms. Marvel. There is no glory in killing Hades' wayward children, but that does not make them any less dangerous."

"I got it. You just blow those bastards away."

As Ares hefted the miniguns, I chimed in. "That's HEI ammo, Ares. Even if you hit them dead center, it's not going to put them down for sure."

"I am aware, Schultz. That is why I plan on going for head shots."

"...right. Head shots. With a pair of miniguns." After a second, all I could do was nod. "Well, you are the God of War, right? Didn't earn that title sitting around on the firing range."

"True. Now, stand fast, Herman. They will be in range soon. SOLDIERS OF SHIELD! TODAY YOU WILL STARE DEATH IN THE FACE, AND IT WILL BE FOUND WANTING! YOU ARE HUMAN BEINGS, BLESSED WITH SOULS AND BREATH! STAND FAST BESIDES THE GOD OF WAR, AND YOU SHALL SEE THE NEXT SUNRISE!"

Hell, I felt inspired. I stood well to the side, an eye on the zombies. They were really damn close, a lot closer than I would have liked, as Ares held down the triggers, and the barrels began to spin again, their high pitched whine drowning out the moans. "STEADY! FIRE ON MY COMMAND," Ares' voice bellowed over the cacophony of noise. "STEADY...STEADY..."

My eyes weren't on the zombie horde. I knew they were out there. They'd get here eventually. Instead, I looked over at Ares, standing tall, and Ms. Marvel behind him. The blonde was dead set, body rigid with just the right amount of give. She had her eyes closed in preparation for the recoil that would throw a sedan backwards. Instead of using her powers to mow down zombies, she was...doing what a lot of villains and criminals wouldn't, taking on a supporting role willingly. I admired that.

And that was all I was going to admire. I forced myself to look back over the barricades. They were a lot closer. "STEADY!"

Arms out.

"STEADY!"

Teeth clicking.

"STEADY!"

From one of the zombies in the front row, its guts fell out as it stumbled, hitting the ground. I couldn't hear the wet plop, but I still blanched as the ghoul stepped in its own innards, still advancing.

"STEADY!"

Deep breath. Glove out. Thumb on the trigger. Midnight on the firing line.

"UNLEASH HELL!"

Streaks of green tracers filled the air as Ares opened fire. Racing across the lawn, upon impact with the skulls of the living dead, the nose of the four-inch round crushes against the firing pin, forcing it into the detonator and causing the round to explode. Against thin-skinned aircraft and light ground targets, HEI rounds will simply chew through them.

Against flesh and bone...there are very few words to describe the carnage that they cause.

The skulls, throats, and some of the upper chest of the first row of zombies simply ceased to exist, turning into a fine red mist as, true to his word, Ares scored head shots. I watched as he swept the Vulcans from side to side, his arms shaking as he did his best to keep the massive guns under his control. Behind him, Ms. Marvel's rear foot was slowly pushing into the ground as she strained to hold Ares in place and provide him with a stable firing platform. Her arms flexed as she pushed against the recoil caused by the massive chainguns.

All along the firing line, the SHIELD soldiers had opened fire as well. Blue energy mixed with green tracers, and short staccatos of gunfire could be heard through the whine of the Vulcans. If the zombies flowing into Central Park had been a normal army, I couldn't imagine anyone withstanding the brutal punishment being inflicted in such a small space. Ares simply shifted from one side to another, covering as much of the column as he could with his deadly rain of steel and explosives.

But it wasn't enough. I know, all that firepower, and the literal God of War, and still the zombies pushed on. Two hundred yards. They were stepping over the bodies of their fallen brethren, walking over brains splattered on the grass, their forms covered in the gore blown in their direction. It didn't matter if their colleague next to them was suddenly missing a head, or that one of their arms was blow clean off, leaving a jagged stump. All that mattered was us, and the Hades on Earth that Ares was laying down didn't dissuade them in the slightest. And while I had nothing but praise for SHIELD and all they've done since this crisis began, they were still men and women who had been trained to go for the center of mass, body shots to drop an opponent. For every blue streak that caught a ghoul in the face, two or three slammed into their chests, ripping a hole in them, or sailed harmlessly overhead.

One guy, though, was shooting with perfect accuracy.

"Oh, I've been working on the railroad..."

BLAM!"

"...all the deadlong..."

BLAM!

"...day!"

BLAM!

"And I have, too," I somehow heard Deadpool say over din. "Railroad work's great for the quads."

One hundred yards. Still well beyond my maximum range. All I could do was watch and wait, ignoring the growing ball of nerves in my stomach. The ammo loaders were feeding Ares the steady stream of firepower, the large belts rapidly flying through their hands as quickly as they could attach new belts of ammunition to the end of the current chain. Four thousand rounds a minute. If every round hit home, that was six thousand dead zombies. Add SHIELD's efforts, and you had maybe another two hundred and fifty. Deadpool brought up maybe another fifty by himself. How many zombies were in New York City, pushing their way towards West Drive and the soft, gooey, fleshy center beyond it?

The center of the column was decimated, row upon row of zombies lying dead (again) in the grass. Behind them, the ghouls making their way over the bodies of the fallen were hung up, tripping over limbs, slipping on the bloody grass, or just mowed down by the stray rounds that flew between the initial groupings. The edges of the column, however, hadn't endured the barrage from Ares' assault, and now, they were close enough to the barricade to draw attention. The fire from SHIELD became more focused, head shots easier due to the short range. "HOLD THE FLANKS," Ares' voice boomed over the battlefield.

Alright. Fifty yards. I took aim with my vibro-smasher. She had been pretty once, before something had ripped half her blonde scalp off. She led the way, one eye socket empty, the baby blue in the other focused on the barricades in front of her. Deep breath. Squeeze the trigger...

...and a miss.

The blast knocked into a zombie behind her, but that one recovered and kept moving forward. My second shot didn't miss, knocking her ruined head backwards as she fell to her knees before dropping forward onto the ground. My body told me to run, to sprint away. Forty yards. The next one was a guy in Dockers and a plaid shirt, untouched save for the little trickle of blood than ran from the corner of his lip. He went down on the first try. Thirty five. A raver girl, wearing a t-shirt with a stuffed teddy bear holding a gun to his head and the phrase "DON'T CARE BEAR" underneath. Headshot. Thirty. A male doctor in OR scrubs. Headshot.

"GRENADES!"

How Ms. Marvel bellowed over the gunfire, I didn't know. Along the line, fire slacked off for a few moments, before a cloud of grenades sailed through the air. Most of them bounced along the ground towards the horde, a few managing to land among the back rows. When the grenades exploded, dirt, grass, and body parts flew through the air, a long line of destruction that ripped bodies apart. Even as limbs and blood rained down from the sky, the zombies just marched right through it. Some of them were caught in the secondary explosions of a few late-exploding grenades, but there wasn't any stopping them.

Twenty five. A pair of twins, with matching bullet wounds above their hearts. Headshots. Twenty. A head attached to nothing more than a shoulder and an arm, blown forward by the grenades, was grabbing at the grass with its fingers and pulling itself along, desperate to get the very first bite of flesh. Headshot. I was acquiring and firing as best as I could, the wider spread of my vibro-blasts letting me sacrifice accuracy for speed. Fifteen. Oh, Christ, that one was wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt as I blew him away. Headshot. Ten.

Five yards.

"CLAYMORES!"

Ms. Marvel's command set off a chain of explosions, as the Claymore mines planted on top of the barricades sent a spray of ball bearings flying through the horde. At chest level, and at close range, the torsos of the closest ghouls ripped in half. One zombie stumbled forward a step, before his head and shoulders slid off his body. God, how many more could there be? How many more marched through the valley of death just got a shot at a human being?

"HOLD! HOLD!"

Ares' voice rallied the soldiers as SHIELD, Deadpool, and myself now fired from point-blank range. His twin Vulcans were to the sides, a wide angle for each gun, doing their best to clean out the edges of the horde. I paid that the scarcest amount of attention as the first zombie clawed at the makeshift barricade in front of me. Missing half its face, dried blood caked on his features, it was pulling itself over the ruined Claymore mine, reaching for me before I slammed it backwards with a blast to the face.

They were crashing into the barricade now. Some of the ghouls lunged forward, trying to use forward momentum to get over the obstructions, while others simply bounced into the walls before slowly reaching up for a handhold. I could hear the yells up and down the barricade, cries of fear and anger.

"LET GO, LET GO OF ME!"

"Head shots, don't waste ammo! Jam the damn barrels in their mouths if you have to!"

"HELP ME!" To my left, two zombies had a hold of a SHIELD soldier, and were trying to pull her over the barricade, where hundreds of hands reached for her. I dashed over, one hand grabbing her ammo harness while the other fired a spread of level three's into the horde. They clawed at my forearm as I pulled her backwards, yanking her away from the grabbing fingers.

"Are you..." was all I could get out before she had pulled her pistol out of her holsters, firing at the horde.

"Bastards," she screamed, bullets ripping in the horde. I stood beside her, sending blast after blast after blast. "You bastards killed my family! Come on! Come on! Come and get it, baby! Come on! I don't got all day! Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on, you too! Oh, you want some of this? Screw you!"

If you're looking for a kill count, you weren't going to get one. At point blank-range, level one blasts were enough to drop a zombie. My forearms were aching soon enough, but I kept putting out vibrations, scrambling the brains of any ghoul dumb enough to get in my way. The bodies of the dead began to pile up on the barricades, slumped over the obstructions, and they kept coming. They tried to use the fallen corpses as steps, and we shot them out of mid-air as they tried to fling themselves at us, and they kept coming. I heard Ares call that he only had two minutes of ammunition left, and they kept coming. I heard Deadpool sing "Call Me" by Blondie in a voice higher than Debbie Harry's, and they kept coming.

Until, they didn't.

"Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!" A few more shots went over the barricade before the firing stopped. The last thing to go quiet was the smoking barrel of one of the Vulcans, its whine slowly dying down, the barrels white-hot from thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Clink.

Ares dropped both miniguns. They landed on of the pile of brass shells that had accumulated around his and Ms. Marvel's feet during the siege. He kicked the spent casings aside as he stepped forward, surveying the battlefield. At his feet, a zombie still moved forward, its lower jaw and half its face blown off. It clutched at Ares' ankle for a moment, before the God of War lifted his boot and smashed the thing's skull like an overripe melon.

"It's a start," he proclaimed.

It was Jonestown mixed with Tom Savini's best work. Countless bodies were scattered across what was once lush green grass, many of them missing heads or limbs. The carnage spread from at the very foot of the barricades almost to the treeline. And still, bodies twitched, continuing to moan even as their spines, bones, and limbs were shattered beyond repair.

"My God," I whispered. "I've never seen...this must...this is what Stalingrad was like, wasn't it? Wave after wave..."

"Aye. Being on the giving end of such punishment is always better than the alternative..."

"OH MY GOD! HERE THEY COME AGAIN!"

The soldier was pointing to the treeline. They were coming again, spilling from between the trunks. Before the new group of zombies, the field of their dead brethren wasn't a deterrence. It was a sign, that humans had caused this slaughter, and that was all that matters. Humans.

"STEADY YOURSELF, WOMAN!" Ares turned to the soldier, a harsh glare in his eyes. "We have broken the vanguard. What comes to you now will come as a gentle rain, not as the mighty deluge. Reload, reacquire, and be ready to fire when they are within range. Colonel Nick Fury trained you, woman. Recall that fact."

Ms. Marvel stepped in front of Ares. She rubbed one arm as she gave him a withering stare. "Ares, how much ammo do you have left for those things?"

"Not enough," he replied. "And the barrels are nearly useless from the heat." Under his mask, I could see an evil grin as he reached over his shoulder, grabbing his mighty war axe. "We will have to do that the old fashioned way."

"I am SO up for that challenge!" Deadpool had slid next to Ares and Ms. Marvel. In both hands, he held a katana blade, the weapon of choice for wannabe posers and skilled assassins everywhere. "You get an achievement if you use nothing but melee weapons for an entire campaign! Hey, Mars, I got two hundred and eighty seven kills last round. How many did you kill?"

"Over nine thousand," Ares responded, his voice almost bored.

"WHAT? NINE THO..."

Everyone winced at the cracking noise as Ares casually backhanded Deadpool across the face. He staggered away, holding his jaw, screeching loudly.

"Do not make that joke in my presence."

"I washen choken," Deadpool replied. He twisted his head to one side, and as I watched, he slammed his jaw to the opposite side. "Ow! Ok, ok, no more Internet jokes. Play those clichés off, keyboard cat!"

"What are we going to do?" I ignored the humming of Deadpool as I stepped up to two of the most powerful beings on the planet. "That was just the tip of the iceberg. The entire New York City horde is pouring into the Park. No offense, Ares, but I don't think even the God of War can take on hundreds of thousands of zombies without getting bitten."

"You are right, Herman."

"I am?"

"Yes. The wise soldier knows when to call in reinforcements. And that time is now." Ares tapped one of the silver studs on his leather harness. "Ares to Iron Patriot. The landing zone is now clear."

"The landing zone?" Ms. Marvel looked at me, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders before she turned to Ares. "What do you mean, the landing zone?"

"What he means, Ms. Marvel," Deadpool said, "is that. Look in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"

"Spider-Man?" I spun around, looking to where Deadpool was pointing. Swinging from the trees behind us, I could make out the familiar form of Spider-Man coming towards us. "Oh, there he is," I said, relief flooding me at the sight. "I thought he was..."

That wasn't Spider-Man. Oh, yeah, a few years ago, it would have been. The web-slinger that landed in front of us wore a familiar costume, but no one associated it with Spider-Man, even though he had been the first guy to wear it. The costume was associated with someone else now, someone a LOT more dangerous than Spider-Man. Punisher levels of dangerous.

He took up, muscles rippling under sleek black skin, the spider-emblem on his chest stark white against the darkness. "Ares," a hissing growl said. "Looks like we missed out on the party..."

"Venom? VENOM?" Ms. Marvel jabbed a finger at Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion and current Venom. "HE'S your reinforcements?"

"Part of them." Ares nodded towards Venom. "Where are the others?"

"Right behind me. I had to get here first, just to see the look on blondie's face here." The smile on Venom's face almost reached his ears, the long tongue resting against sharp teeth. "You just look so dumbfounded right now, Ms. Marvel."

"I do not see the problem, Ms. Marvel. After all, the Shocker stands by your side, an able combatant. Yet you don't seem to mind his criminal past."

"That's because Venom is a psychopath!"

"I'm standing right here!" Venom turned to me, that grin getting bigger somehow. "Herman! I can't believe you're still alive. You have more lives than the Black Cat."

"Gargan," I said. "I was wondering where you ended up."

"Where else? On the winning si..."

"No, Mac. No, don't say that, please."

"Who else do you have coming?" Ms. Marvel pointed towards the zombies. This horde was spread out, not as dense as the last mob, but they were steadily advancing. "Because they're still coming, and we need to regroup and get this firing line set back up!"

"Don't worry, Ms. Marvel," a robotic voice spoke from above us. "The Avengers are here to take care of this."

And then it got really weird.

The first one I saw, obviously, was Moonstone. She was descending from the sky, feet first, almost the splitting image of Ms. Marvel, down to the long blonde hair (Moonstone's wasn't as blonde as Ms. Marvel's) and killer body. You have to respect a woman who wears a long sleeved top and damn near nothing on the rest of her body save a red scarf. She was a former criminal, and then a former-reformed criminal when she joined up with the Thunderbolts, with almost the same powers as Ms. Marvel, save for the ability to go intangible. Oh, and she was also a master at mental manipulation, able to get schlubs like me dancing to her tune. I mean, hell, she wears a red scarf. You don't think she's used it to tie men up? See? Right there, not one word from her and already I'm drooling a bit.

I didn't recognize the man she was carrying, a young man of Japanese heritage with a top knot ponytail and tattoos running down his arms.

And I kind of recognized the metal suit also coming down from the air next to Moonstone. But I didn't know when Iron Man got a star-spangled suit of armor.

The final guy, hopping off the back of the guy in the metal suit, I instantly recognized. "Huh," I said, crossing my arms as all four of the newcomers approached our merry little band. "The Punisher said he killed you out on Riker's. I don't know why I believed him."

"You know me," Bullseye said, a grin on his face. "I never miss. Sometimes, the Punisher does."

"Situation report, Ares," the man in the power armor said.

"The back has been broken of this incursion," the God of War told him. "But the enemy still approaches. With all of us here, the battle will be easily won."

"Good. I see the M61's worked like you had predicted. Venom, Moonstone. I want you two to strengthen these barricades into something proper. Bullseye, Ares, I want you two to get these soldiers ready. Set up firing lanes and get these people proper weapons. Daken, make sure everyone's properly motivated. I want no fear in the hearts of any of these soldiers."

The Japanese man grunted, turning away and heading towards the nearest group of SHIELD members. Everyone else was soon following the instructions of the metal man, calmly going about execution as the zombie horde advanced, slowed down by the carnage of the battlefield, but still making their way towards West Drive.

"Oh, and you," the man said, waving a dismissive hand towards the waiting Deadpool. "There were zombies heading towards some civilians who had fled towards the south of the park. Go keep them safe."

"The ghouls or the civvies?"

The metal man turned to face Deadpool, causing the loudmouth to just throw up his hands. "Fine, ok. I'll go play a good guy. What the hell. I owe it to the people for 'Marvel Zombies 3' and 'Marvel Zombies 4' anyway." Deadpool walked past Ms. Marvel and I, slamming a new clip into his assault rifle. "You two kids be good. And I mean it. If I come back and find out this story's been re-rated 'M' for adult situations, I'm going to be insanely, insanely jealous."

"What the hell..." I said as he strode away, whistling.

"Trust me. It's Deadpool. You'll go nuts trying to figure him out." Ms. Marvel and I turned, facing the final newcomer. "Alright. I heard Ares say your name was the Iron Patriot. So who the hell are you, really?"

With a hiss of hydraulics, the mask opened, pulling apart to reveal a smirking face. "I'm the savoir of humanity. Who else," Norman Osborn replied.

X

For once, I didn't pause. "You son of a bitch," I cried, bringing my hand back...

"No, Herman!" Ms. Marvel caught my hand, locking it in place. Even though the tight grip, I kept trying to slug Osborn, who simply sat there in his suit of armor with a smug look on his face.

"Come on! Everyone's been making me their bitch all week! One damn punch, that's all I'm asking!"

"No!" She spun me around, holding me by my wrist. She dragged me so her face was inches from mine. "Damn it, the man's in a suit of power armor. Odds are, he'd vaporize you in a second!"

"That man killed my best friend!"

"Allegedly," Osborn replied smoothly.

I almost broke free, but Marvel was holding me tight. Any other time, any other place, I would have been incredibly turned on. "Osborn, start talking, or else I will let Schultz loose."

"That's supposed to be a threat?" Osborn shook his head. "This is my team, Ms. Marvel. The new...well, I said Avengers earlier, but due to changing circumstances, let's call them the all-new, all-different Thunderbolts. I was going to introduce them in a few months as...well, part of the Initiative program, but obviously, the current situation has caused a change of plans."

"Those guys?" I pointed to where Bullseye was helping to sight a .50 caliber machine gun. "He's a psychopath! And Venom's a psychopath!"

"And Moonstone isn't exactly the most stable woman either," Ms. Marvel chimed in.

"Yes. Well...common criminal," Osborn said, pointing towards me. "Reformed criminal," he said, pointing at himself. "And let's not forget the Trapster, who I have working a unit on the south end of the park. At this point in humanity's defense, there are no more shades of gray, Ms. Marvel, only black and white. Now, my plan," he continued, "is to set up a defensive line here. The rest of the externals barriers are holding, and the horde of undead are flowing in this direction. My Thunderbolts will hold the line, protecting the civilians and attempting to seal the breech once the numbers have been thinned out. You and the Shocker should fly back to the portal and attempt to help your fellow Avengers. If you can't rescue Doctor Strange, then it will be up to the Thunderbolts to save the day."

"That's what you want, Osborn. Isn't it?" I rubbed my wrist where Ms. Marvel had held me back. "To save the day and punctuate that final point on how good you've become."

"Hardly. I want to save the day, Herman, because I'm a friend of humanity. Now, the longer you stand here and prattle at me, the worse off your new friends at the portal will be. I suggest you hurry back."

He was right. Oh, how I hated that he was right. I leveled a finger at him. Cliché, yes. But I meant every word I was about to say. "When this is all said and done, Norman, we will talk about what you did to Aleksei and what you tried to do with me. Bank on it."

"Oh, I'm sure I will be talking to you again, Herman. Now, go." Osborn's helmet sealed back up as he turned to the barricade. "Ares, they're within three hundred yards..."

"Herman...let's go." Ms. Marvel took my hands, putting them on her shoulders before leaping into the air. We sailed over the abandoned refugee camp, the SHIELD soldiers using it as a makeshift readying area for the next stage of the siege.

"He killed Aleksei," I said to Ms. Marvel. "I'm not lying."

"I believe you, Herman. But those things were getting closer. Having a knock down fight with Norman Osborn, especially with...those new Thunderbolts, was going to do nothing more than waste precious time and probably get you and a whole lot of SHIELD soldiers killed." We headed towards the red glow to our north, the portal still giving off that blood-red light. "Once this is all said and done, I promise there will be an investigation. But for now, we have bigger fish to fry. And as much as it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, we need them to hold the line. We can't get distracted. Grim Reaper's the key to this whole mess. He's the one we need to beat."

"I'm all for that. I just wish we had even more firepower. Where the hell's the Sentry? He'd tear those things apart without even breaking a damn sweat."

"Sentry's out on Long Island. He went out with the Fantastic Four earlier today. Said being around zombies unnerved him for some reason."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Wow, yeah, because the rest of us are RIGHT at home fighting the living dead."

"Trust me, we've all learned that...the Sentry needs a little bit of extra care," Ms. Marvel said with a smirk. "He's got more self-esteem problems them most of you former criminals."

"MS. MARVEL! SHOCKER!"

"Gah!" I would have launched a blast in surprise if I hadn't been clutching to Ms. Marvel's shoulders. She came to a halt, hovering in place, as a floating face appeared directly on front of us. It was a faint, ghostly image, but the outlines of Doctor Strange's features were clearly visible.

"I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME. DORMAMMU IS RELENTL..." Strange's voice was powerful, but it fell in volume at times, like a cell phone with a poor connection. "THE DARKHOLD IS THE KEY TO STOPP...STLESS DEAD. IT IS CURRENTLY...BARON MORDO...PEAT, MORDO. FIND THE DARK..."

The image suddenly cut off, empty air where Strange's face had been moments before. I looked over Ms. Marvel's shoulder at her as I asked, "you catch any of that?"

"I think so. Something about the Darkhold, and how Baron Mordo probably has it."

"Sounds about right..."

"Hey, I used to crack codes for a living. I've made sound decisions on much less information."

In the near distance, the red portal swirled angrily. Up here, we could hear the sounds of combat, with blue, white, silver, and yellow flashes lightning up the immediate area. Behind us, faintly, the sounds of gunfire as the Thunderbolts began their fight at the barricade. And there we were, hanging in the air, stuck in the middle.

"Well," I asked, "what're your instincts telling you?"

"That's easy, Herman. We go after this Darkhold. You said the Grim Reaper waited to make his move until he had possession of it. If Doctor Strange says it's important, and I think he said it'll stop the dead...that's the clincher."

I nodded in agreement, but said, "I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here...what about the fight down at the portal? If they're still going at it, the Avengers could use your...our," I corrected myself. It still wasn't something I was used to saying. "They could use our help."

She shook her head, tangled strands swishing back and forth with the motion. "If they needed out help, they would have called for it by now. They've handled the Grim Reaper before, they can do it again. Besides, this is more important. It's like fighting a whole bunch of robots when you could just try to flip the switch and shut them all down."

I nodded. "I'm with you. Just making sure we're not missing an angle. And I don't see one we're overlooking."

"There is one problem, Herman...where the hell's Mordo? He could be anywhere in the city."

"No..." I said. "He'd have to be nearby. Otherwise, he could have just stayed in St. Patrick's and...I don't know, worked whatever spell or ritual or whatever."

"Well, there's a lot of nearby..." She paused. "Ok, let's start at someplace obvious. Hang on." She spun in mid-air, and soon, we were flying south. To one side, the flashes of battle were evident as the Thunderbolts held the line against the next wave of zombies. Still numerous, the horde pressing towards the barricades were spread out a lot more, moving forward of their own accord and not because of the pressing weight behind them. "That red energy that made the barricades disappear, it was definitely magical, and probably powerful if it just made those walls vanish. Maybe Mordo was nearby when he..."

"The museum." I pointed over her shoulder to the pile of stone jutting out from Central Park's west side. "It happened right there. Hell, there's probably enough relics and antiques in that place...it would be like an engineer let loose in a junk yard. All that old stuff in some of those exhibits..."

"It's as good a place to start as any." She banked, bringing our flight path directly over the horde still streaming past the museum. They still came from the north and the south, the barricades guiding them to the massive hole in the defenses of Central Park. I couldn't see the end of the line in either direction, the undead stretching as far as my eyes could see. Too damn many. If the Thunderbolts held the firing line in the face of this steady onslaught, it would be miraculous.

We landed on the roof, Ms. Marvel setting us down on the brand new terrace that had just opened up in September. Leafless trees, wilting plants, and long tables greeted us as we walked around the central pool of the terrace. "It's still like looking for a needle in a haystack," I said as we walked towards the north end of the terrace. Behind us was a glass cube, surrounding a large blue sphere that, during normal operating hours, held a spectacular 3-D narrated by Jodie Foster about the Big Bang and the history of the universe. I had seen it the year before with Speed Demon and Blizzard. Normally bathed in blue light, the sphere was a shadowy orb in the lightless cube. "This place is huge, not to mention a damn maze. If we're wrong, we've wasted a lot of time."

"Then hope we're not wrong. You should try being more of an optimist, Herman."

"I'm more of a realist. My optimism comes in the form of delusion."

There was only one way into the museum from the terrace, a seasonal entrance that closed up right after the big opening night party a month previous. "They sealed this place up and set the alarms when Osborn closed off the park," Ms. Marvel told me. Everyone says you're a wizard at locks. Think you can get us inside?"

I studied the door for a moment, before looking up at the walls surrounding the door. The light from the security sensor was visible, running on backup power. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I can. Shouldn't take too long."

I reached out, and grasped the door handle. It easily swung open without any resistance. "Ta da."

"What...how did you do that?"

"The door's unlocked. And," I said, nodding to the green light on the alarm sensor, "the alarm system is on standby. Which probably means someone's inside already."

"That's a promising sign."

"Damn right. After you," I said, waving my hand at the open door as I held it for her.

"Huh. Who would have thought you had manners?" Ms. Marvel stepped inside the planetarium, and I quickly followed, letting the door shut behind me. Dim emergency lightning was the only illumination, shining on the various exhibits that lined the hallway.

"So," I said in a low, quiet voice, "where the hell do we start?"

After a second of thought, Ms. Marvel pointed down the hallway. "Let's go to the Rotunda. Maybe we'll get lucky and Mordo's sitting right under the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. If not, we'll just have to search the museum and hope we get lucky."

She moved like a cat, easy, quiet strides you wouldn't expect from someone so powerful. I followed right behind, moving quickly, steps silent like I was breaking into the joint. Casing a place like the Museum of Natural History was every burglar's dream, and Lord knows we passed a few gemstones and relics that would have pulled a damn fortune to certain interested buyers. But the security on a place like this was almost on par with Avengers Tower. And here we were, quietly waltzing through the museum after hours.

We reached the rotunda without any problems. The wide balconies overlooked the lobby of the museum, officially known as the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. From up here, we could see the soft lights shining on the various exhibits to the former President. And while it wasn't directly related, there was some small bit of irony to the fact that the Roosevelt Hall held a complete skeleton of a Brontosaurus. The long neck of the dinosaur reached towards the roof, almost meeting the railing of the second story balcony.

"Well," I said, "he's not under the Brontosaurus."

"No...but do you see that?" Ms. Marvel leaned over the railing, pointing down from where we stood. "That's not emergency lighting, is it?"

"Nope," I said as I saw what she was pointing at. "That sure as hell ain't." I stepped around the rotunda's balcony, trying to get a better glimpse. From the large hall directly opposite the main entrance to the museum, green light spilled through the open doorway, illuminating the dark lobby. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Ms. Marvel," I told her as she walked next to me, "but that's the same color green the portal was before everything went to hell, isn't it?"

"The final piece of the puzzle," the blonde mused. "Come on, let's check it out..."

"I can hear you talking." The voice was crisp and concise as it came from downstairs. "I've heard you ever since you landed on the terrace. Please, come downstairs and let us discuss matters face-to-face."

"You know," I sighed, "I don't like this new idea of civil bad guys. I prefer getting the drop of some poor sap. It's always worked for me." I turned to walk down the steps, but instead, Ms. Marvel grabbed me by the waist, and hopped over the railing, holding me tightly against her. I must have become an upstanding citizen, because I held back on the naughty thoughts until we were almost to the first floor. We landed in front of the doorway, any efforts at stealth thrown out the window.

The Hall of North American Mammals had long been a centerpiece of the Museum of Natural History. The stuffed and mounted animals around the hall were prime examples of North American ecology. Any kid who's ever been on a field trip to the museum (and that's every kid in the New York public school system, including myself) remembers the jaguars from Mexico, the bighorn sheep from Canada, and the wild buffalo from the Great Plains, each one set against a stunning landscape diorama. The exhibits were awash in a gentle green glow, eminating from a portal floating in the middle of the room. It was smaller than the one Doctor Strange had opened, but it shared the same characteristics, down to the counter-clockwise swirl.

Below the portal, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a goatee sat in the lotus position. He wore a green outfit, complete with a green cape that fell below his legs towards the floor. The top of his cape ended in two long, curved points that extended well above his shoulder, ending just past the top of his head. In his lap, was a thick book, its pages worn and yellowed with time. It lay open, floating just above his thighs.

As Ms. Marvel and I approached him, the man opened his eyes. Against the soft green light, the blood red orbs stood out instantly. He gave the two of us a tight smile. "Thank you for accepting my invitation." He gave me a curt nod. "Herman Schultz." He then gave another nod to Ms. Marvel. "Carol Danvers. Welcome to my sanctum. Since you do not have the pleasure, Herman, allow me to introduce myself. I am Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo."

"Another Baron. Is Dormammu just handing out titles like there's no tomorrow?"

"Actually, Herman, Mordo's a real Baron. Romanian, right?"

"Transylvanian, actually, Ms. Marvel. Don't believe those pretenders who have claimed the title of Baron. They simply wished to believe themselves equal to me."

"For someone who's feeling superior, your boss sure stationed you in the ass end of nowhere," I pointed out.

"Look at it this way, Shocker," Mordo replied. "Any fool can throw themselves at the Avengers and be beaten. But a wise man throws someone else at the Avengers while, in another location, the true plan is unraveled. Misdirection and subterfuge, two topics I am sure you are familiar with."

"Strange was right," Ms Marvel added. "The portal's just the end result. You're the key, whatever it is you're planning."

"Of course. Who else would be trusted with ensuring my master's plan comes to fruition but his most trusted servant?"

"So, the Grim Reaper..."

"...is nothing but a patsy, Herman." Baron Mordo nodded towards the book on his lap. "I am, as always, Dormammu's chosen. Not Eric Williams. Certainly not that two-bit crime lord Parker Robbins. Suggesting that the Hood be the initial sacrifice, if I may be so bold, was a true stroke of genius on my part. The Grim Reaper is nothing more than a pawn who believes he can become a king. And, perhaps he can. But he shall never be my equal in the eyes of the Dread Lord."

"It's like the mob. Everyone's backstabbing each other to gain favor in the Godfather's eyes," I reckoned.

"Astute analogy, Herman. It is a shame that you turned down the Reaper's offer. Your body was unmarked by a physical sign of death. You could have lived forever and maybe become a faithful comrade and a worthy opponent for Dormammu's attention."

"Yeah, well...we're here for the Darkhold." I took a step forward, my hands clenched into fists. You know this was going to break down into a fight, and I was going to be ready for it. "So, whatever it is, just hand it over and Ms. Marvel and I won't have to smack you around like we've done with the rest of your master's cronies."

"Ah. So this is where I'm supposed to tell you what the Darkhold does and spill to you all my plans? Very well." Mordo reached out and put one hand, palm down, on the book in front of him. "Splendid piece of literature, this thing. Spells and rituals dating back to before recorded history, written down by the planet's first practitioner of black magic. The first vampire was spawned from these pages during the time when Atlantis was on the surface of the ocean. Empires you've never heard of and heroes you couldn't imagine fought against the evil that this book has brought forth. And now, it will bring about the end of the human race, and herald Dormammu's dominion over this planet."

"So it's the Anarchist's Cookbook, for magicians," I asked.

"Crude, but appropriate."

"Well, whatever it is, Mordo, you ain't supposed to have it. Don't suppose I could ask you to hand it over one more time, save us a whole lot of time and trouble?"

He shook his head. "I cannot do that."

"At least tell us what the hell that damn book does," Ms. Marvel offered from the back. "I hate chasing McGuffins. That thing has a purpose. What does it do, Mordo?"

"The proper question is, what doesn't it do? It allows one to raise the dead. It allows one to control the dead. And, when properly combined with an infection from another dimension, it allows one to raise and control the dead on a massive scale. Why do you think all the zombies ended up in Central Park? Why do you think, all around the world, sanctuaries and so-called rescue stations were easily overwhelmed? There is an instinct for flesh, Ms. Marvel. And this book allows that instinct to be nurtured, tamed, and driven to a sole purpose. An entire global horde, Ms. Marvel, all under my command, following my orders."

"So, it's the switch to control all the robots. Looks like you were right, Ms. Marvel."

"Hand the book over, Mordo." Ms. Marvel strode forward, passing me. She had her fists clenched as well, and steel in his voice. "This ends. This zombie uprising ends. Now."

"Tsk, tsk," Mordo's voice said with mocking disdain. "Do you really think someone as wise and as powerful as me would put himself out in the open without someone to watch over him? Now, please forgive me. The hour is getting late, and I've taken too much time." Mordo closed his eyes, and his lips began to move, silently chanting a prayer or a ritual under his breath.

"Your funer..."

Before Ms. Marvel could finish her threat, something slammed into her from behind. She was propelled forward, zooming by Baron Mordo before landing in a heap on the tile floor, bouncing a few more feet before coming to a stop against the rear wall of the exhibit.

I was holding down the triggers even as I was turning. The level-three blasts splashed harmlessly off my target. As I register my totally lack of impact, something big impacted against my side, flinging me backwards. I sailed through the air, landing at the feet of a stuffed jaguar. "Alright, pal," I sneered, pulling myself back to my feet, "you just screwed with the..."

Gray skin. A powerful frame. I knew who it was in an instant. And all the bravado fell away, replaced by crushing despair.

"Oh, no," I choked out in a whisper. "Oh, no, no, no, no. This can't be happening...no..."

"I'm sorry, Herman," Aleksei said. He stared at me with red eyes, blood seeping from the gaping hole in his body armor. "I'm really, really sorry. But you didn't leave me a choice."


	35. Gone Guru

I hit the moose stomach first. I hung on the stuffed exhibit, trying to catch my breath, holding on for dear life as a massive gray hand grabbed the back of my neck.

"I tried so hard not to come back, Herman." Aleksei held me in the air for a moment. "I really did. You have to believe that. I did everything I could to stay dead." With a grunt of effort, he drove me into the tile floor face-first. I felt the blood flow from my nose as he lifted me back up, and slammed me back down. "It was so dark, Herman. And so cold. I've never, ever been that cold before. I couldn't grab onto anything. It...it kept pulling at me."

He let go of me. I tried to crawl away, but a massive foot drove into the small of my break. I screamed in pain as Aleksei applied pressure to my spine. "I resisted. I screamed, but no one could hear me roar, even myself. And the whole time, that urge kept pulling at me, Herman. I was hungry, and getting hungrier. I've never been that hungry. I knew, I just knew, if I opened my eyes, I'd have a chance to stop being hungry. I knew what that meant, Herman."

I felt the foot lift off my back, but it soon booted me in the side, causing me to roll over and curl into a ball. The pain was incredible. The mental anguish...this was my best friend. This couldn't...no way. It can't be.

"You know what that meant. But I wasn't going to be a zombie. No way. I wasn't going to be walking around like that. The harder I fought, Herman, the hungrier I became. You have to understand that. I tried not to, but it just got to be too much. I had to give in, Herman. If I didn't...I couldn't. I couldn't take it anymore."

"Aleksei..." I choked out between breaths.

"Then he reached out a hand to me. I had to take it, Herman. If I didn't, I'd become one of those things. And I didn't want that. Neither did you. I took the Grim Reaper's hand. It was the only choice I could make."

Aleksei grabbed me again, lifting me up from my armpits. "I'm dead, Herman. But I'm not hungry anymore. The Grim Reaper made sure of that." With a yell, Aleksei threw me over his head. I crashed into the floor back first, right on my tailbone. My back arched in pain, my hand going to my ass, as Aleksei turned and strode over to where I lay.

"And he explained a few things to me, Herman." He towered over me, all eight feet of him, staring down. Blood dripped from the jagged hole that Osborn's explosion had torn into his body armor. "Everything you and I did over the past week. It's what led to Norman Osborn noticing me. It's what led to Osborn killing me. It's what led to me coming back like this. And it's all your fault. You wanted to play a hero, Herman. It got you all the glory. And it got me killed."

"No...I didn't..."

Aleksei lifted one huge foot, slowly bringing over my face. His face took on an angry glare, as he reared back to smash my head into the ground...

She streaked from across the room, catching Aleksei off-balance, driving her shoulder into his sternum. Aleksei stumbled backwards, before falling to the ground. The exhibits all around the hall shook slightly at the impact. He rolled around, trying to use his arms to stand back up, and in that time, Ms. Marvel had grabbed me by the forearms and flown out of the hall. In the museum's lobby, she raced up to the top landing of the rotunda, soaring past the hanging banners to land us on the third floor. She set me down, and I immediately slumped against the wall, sliding down into a sitting position. I was in shock, just numb, as the universe decided to cock the ultimate "screw with Herman" shotgun, and load it with the undead body of my best friend.

"Damn it," I barely heard Ms. Marvel grouse. "The Rhino. That complicates things."

"Oh, Herman." His voice sounded like gravel rolling down a rocky hillside as it called up to us. "You got an Avenger to come help you, and it's not even one of the good ones. Herman and Marvel, sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g..."

"I have to call this in. We're gonna need backup." Ms. Marvel reached for her belt, before getting a confused look on her face. "Do not tell me I lost my communicator...Herman." She sounded so far away, a tinny voice in my ear. "Herman," Ms. Marvel hissed, "do you still have my communicator?"

Mechanically, I pulled out the device from my belt. A trembling hand held it out to her. She snatched it, and quickly snapped the communicator open. "Ms. Marvel to any Avenger. Ms. Marvel to any Avenger. Come in. Anyone." After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again. "Ms. Marvel to any Avenger, I'm at the Museum of Natural History. Need backup, quickly." When no one responded, she shoved the device back into its holder on her belt. "Nothing. Either we're being jammed, or no one can get to their phone."

"...then comes Blondie with the baby carriage!" Aleksei chuckled as he finished the song. "You two might as well just go home. I'm not letting you anywhere near Baron Mordo." The familiar sound of him cracking his knuckles filled the lobby. "But you're more than welcome to try."

Ms. Marvel turned from the balcony, kneeling down beside me. "Herman, you know what the Rhino is capable off better than anyone else. We need a plan to get past him and get the Darkhold away from Mordo."

Plan? Aleksei could go toe-to-toe with the Hulk, and we barely beat the green giant with a whole contingent of Avengers...

"Herman? Earth to Herman, come in Herman."

My vibro-blasts would roll right off of him. Ms. Marvel maybe could crack the dermal plating given enough time, but Aleksei could probably swat her around without breaking a sweat...

That's when she hauled off and smacked me.

I felt it through my face's padding as my head swung to the side. "Ow," I muttered. I would have been a little more forceful with my protest, save for the fact it really hurt to move my jaw at the moment. "What the hell, lady?"

"Listen up, Schultz, because I only have time to say this once." She pointed at the floor. "Down there, below us, that's not your friend. That's not the Aleksei you knew yesterday. It's a zombie, a zombie wearing the skin and armor of the Rhino. It's not Aleksei. It's the Rhino. It's not your friend, it's a damn corpse. So find your focus and help me fight, because the only way we're going to get at the Darkhold and stop the end of the world is by going through him."

Some people think the best way to get through to someone is by getting inches from their face and screaming. Ms. Marvel was the opposite, speaking softly, not yelling, just stating everything as quickly and as clearly as she could. And that's what got through to me.

I put my hand out. She grabbed it and quickly helped me to my feet. "Alright," she said in a low voice. "Welcome back to planet Earth. What do we do?"

"I...ok," I said, taking a breath. "It's not just the suit that's made him tough. Aleksei's had that thing for so long, the chemicals have seeped into his skin. He's just as tough as the Hulk and we don't have Hydro-Man to go for the brain this time out. Pounding on him doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of taking him down in time...especially if he can regenerate like the rest of the Reaper's minions. Punisher blew Black Talon's head off, and he just grew it right back."

"So you're saying we can't take him out ourselves."

"Not the two of us, no. Not directly. Look what it took for us to stop the Hulk, and we don't have Spider-Man and Thor this time. Damn it...I can't believe I'm missing the web head." I sighed, closing my eyes. "Alright, we do this. I can distract him. You fly in and deal with Mordo."

"Herman...no," Ms. Marvel replied. "You're not powerful enough to..."

"You think I don't know that!" I snapped at her, causing her eyes to narrow a little bit as she recoiled. "I know more about Aleksei than you do, and you know more about Mordo than I do. It's like you said before...me fighting Osborn would have been a waste of time. Trying to fight Aleksei would be a waste of time as well. If I can snag Aleksei's attention, it'll let you get a shot at taking out Mordo, grabbing the Darkhold, and flying us both out of here."

I saw the skepticism on her face, and tried to smile under my mask. "Hey, it's a stupid plan that's going to get me killed. But you said so yourself, the Darkhold and stopping the Grim Reaper are the big things on the menu. This plan is the best I could come up with on really freakin' short notice, Ms. Marvel." I paused for a second. "This is where I'm supposed to say 'trust me,' right?"

"Oh yeah, this plan's definitely going to work now." She shook her head. "You're right. Let's do it. Just don't get yourself killed, Shocker. I'm beginning to like you."

That statement lifted my sagging spirits a little. "I'm beginning to like myself too." I spun away, standing up and leaning over the edge of the balcony. Aleksei was staring up at me, a tight, stupid grin on his face. "Alright, Aleksei. I'm coming down, and we're going to talk."

"Talk? Are you out of your damn mind," I heard Ms. Marvel hiss.

"Hey, it'll distract him," I answered without moving my lips. "Trust me, and I'm saying that non-ironically." I walked to the steps, and slowly made my down from the top of the Rotunda. I did my best to always keep a wary eye on Aleksei, and he never took his gaze off me. His massive arms hung at his sides, gray fists clenched. I lost track of Ms. Marvel as I descended, keeping my focus on Aleksei the whole time.

I stopped at the bottom of the steps. Across from me, just outside the door to the Hall of North American Mammals, Aleksei was backlit by the green light generated by whatever ritual Baron Mordo was...casting? Running? I don't know the proper magical terminology, but the light shined around Aleksei like he was a monster from a bad 1980's techno-horror movie. We stood, facing each other. I wondered what he saw. There wasn't much steel in my spine, but I tried to stand up straight. It's what Ms. Marvel said. What was inside wasn't the man I knew before.

Yeah, and neither was Electro. Or the Vulture. That didn't stop me from relating to them.

Aleksei spoke first. "So, Herman, is this where you and I fight?"

"If that's what you want, Aleksei. I'd prefer a chance to gab first, though."

"Herman, there isn't anything to talk about. I've got a new group of friends, friends who will watch my back, friends who helped me out when I was dead. I've made my call, and it's a damn easy one."

"I can't believe that. Ain't ever heard you talk this way, Aleksei."

"Well...death changes things, Herman. You can't look back on your life the same way once you've kicked the bucket." His voice still rumbled like a bass line, but his manner of speaking had changed. I couldn't put my finger on it. "I know what's coming. I've seen the end. No one's spared, not even the kids."

"The old you would never..."

"That's it, Herman. I'm not the old me. I'm the new me. And I'm the new me because of you." He jammed two fingers into the wound on his chest. "I've been bleeding for the past few hours." With a large schlurping sound, he pulled them back out. Blood, muscle, and bone oozed over the digits as he held them towards me. "I'll never stop bleeding, according to Electro. I've already pulled out my guts, and they just keep coming back. That's the price for living, Herman. I have to deal with this pain, this...sensation for the rest of days. I could blame it on Osborn. He was the guy who pulled the trigger. But he wouldn't have pulled the trigger if you hadn't put the two of us in his crosshairs." I could hear the gentle tapping of blood hitting the tile floor as he pointed the red fingers at me. "And you were the one who got away."

"Aleksei...Osborn tried to kill me too. He had Peter poison me and shove me out of a helicopter. The Grim Reaper rescued me...Osborn, Aleksei," I said, a small pleading note sliding into my voice. "He tried to kill both us."

"He tried to kill you, Herman. He killed me. And do you know what the worst part is? Osborn's still alive."

Pause.

"NORMAN OSBORN IS STILL ALIVE, HERMAN!" Aleksei started to walk towards me, away from the doorway to the Hall of North American Mammals. "My murderer is walking around, breathing, and you just let that slide!"

One massive hand reached out, slapping away a glass case full of butterflies. The exhibit shattered against the floor as he came at me. "You had how many shots to kill him? You couldn't have found all this vaunted courage and heroic drive to pull yourself up and put a blast in his face?"

"I..." My mouth wouldn't open. "I tried..."

"NO! NO, YOU DIDN'T, HERMAN! YOU CAME SO CLOSE TO KILLING THE TRAPSTER FOR A MILLION BUCKS, BUT WHEN YOUR BEST FRIEND DIES, SUDDENLY YOUR MORALITY COMES INTO PLAY? MONEY MEANS MORE TO YOU THAN MY FRIENDSHIP EVER DID!"

Behind him, slowly hovering down from the third floor, Ms. Marvel quietly descended through the air. I had Aleksei's attention, and if I could...just somehow hold it...

"I'm trying to save the damn world," I tried to yell in anger, but it came out in a normal tone, no matter how much I tried to force volume. "Once this is all over, Aleksei, I promise, Osborn will pay for what he did to you. The bastard's going to get what's coming to him. But damn it, there's still a world to save..."

"The world to save!" He came to a stop ten feet away from me. Anger like I'd rarely seen was etched on his face. "When did you ever care about the world? You only cared about yourself, and now you want to save it? All that time staying under the radar. You spent more time running away from Spider-Man than fighting him. You went underground to avoid the Scourge of the Underworld! Not anymore, huh? You finally found a way to fill that ego of yours, Herman, and apparently you don't care who has to die and who gets to live in order to make you feel better about yourself!"

She was just reaching the doorway, and I did my best to keep my eyes on Aleksei so the game didn't get given away. "You wanted to help people too! You and me, we went out to that 7-11 on the first night to protect everyone trapped inside! You came with me willingly, and we BOTH put our asses on the line!"

"Because I was following you, Herman! You always had my back, you always looked out for me, and I made sure no one ever messed with you!"

I put up my hands. "Stop...just stop screaming, Aleksei. I'm sorry, alright? I'm so sorry. If I had a chance, I'd wish this never had happened, that none of this ever came to pass. It's not worth it. Only a madman wants the end of the world to make himself look good. This, none of this, isn't worth the death of the one damn guy I trusted with my back."

"It doesn't matter anymore, Herman. You made your call to be a hero, it got me killed, and then you kept being a hero by letting Osborn walk. That's reality, and we both have to deal with it. And after Baron Mordo takes care of Ms. Marvel, it'll just be you and me. Oh, you didn't think he didn't notice your puny attempt at distracting me?"

Aleksei turned to one side, motioning to the open doorway. Ms. Marvel floated about five feet off the ground, her hands struggling with the bright green chains that wrapped around her body. "A pitiful attempt at espionage," Mordo smoothly voiced from the other room as Ms. Marvel's fingers tried to work between the links of the chain and her neck. "Let us end this farce, quickly."

The chains tightened, and, with a loud cry from the blonde, Ms. Marvel was yanked into the room. Mordo gestured with one hand towards the green portal floating behind him, and I watched, helpless, as Ms. Marvel was flung through the opening. The light flared for a moment, outlining her buxom figure, before she vanished from sight, leaving only Baron Mordo, still hovering in the lotus position. "And then," the aristocrat said, "there was one."

"Not for long, Mordo." Aleksei's eyes narrowed, his grin predatory. "Don't worry, Herman. I'll make sure you die here on Earth instead of...wherever Ms. Marvel and the others ended up. And because we were friends for so long, I'll even make sure you stay down for good. It's the least I could do."

I responded the only way I could.

"Alright, Aleksei. If that's what you want. I'll find a way to put you down for good, even if it means ripping that damn Darkhold apart page by page." I didn't have a choice. Ms. Marvel had been right. Aleksei needed stopped, somehow. And then I had to beat Baron Mordo. And then figure out a way to get Ms. Marvel out of that portal. For a second-rate criminal like me, that would have taken a lot of pre-planning, payoffs to the right people, and a whole lot of equipment. For a second-rate hero like me, it's gonna take a whole lot of improv.

This wasn't my friend. I had to keep telling myself that, taking those emotions and shoving them in a lockbox. This was a bad guy. This was a mean zombie, just like the Incredible Hulk. This was someone who wanted my head on a platter. I had to take him down. And that's what heroes did. Pull it out of their ass when push has gone way beyond shove.

Two level-three's right to the chest, followed by me turning around and hauling ass back up the steps. I could hear the futile impact of my attack as I took the stairs two at a time. His footsteps boomed behind me as Aleksei ran after me. "Oh, you want to make this interesting, Herman? I can do that!"

There was no way I could beat Aleksei in a slugging match. There was no way I could escape Aleksei, since the museum was surrounded by the living dead streaming into Central Park. What I needed right now was some kind of plan, since my last one had gone south almost immediately, leaving me facing off against an undead sorcerer and an undead tank.

On the second floor, I hang the corner hard and fly up the third floor steps, my arms pumping. I could hear my doom coming up behind me, the thump of feet on stairs soon turning into a steady beat. I could imagine him behind me, head lowered, horn out, legs pumping. This is what I was afraid of, a straight line with plenty of room for Aleksei to build up speed, even if it was an incline. I didn't have a choice at the moment. I don't think I've ever sprinted as hard as I have during my trip to the third floor. I spun around at the top of the steps, grabbing the railing and flinging myself around the corner as quickly and as sharply as possible. My boots gripped the tile floor as I ran forward, crossing the third floor of the rotunda. I risked a glance over my shoulder to see Aleksei's horn coming up the third flight of stairs. My lungs burned as I crossed the lobby, and trying to see where Aleksei was, I didn't see the wall in front of me. I slammed into it, bouncing off and landing on my ass.

I scrambled back to my feet. To my right was a hallway leading to the Hall of Asian Mammals. To my left, the wooden and glass door to the museum's gift shop was closed. I took a second to catch my breath as Aleksei emerged from the dim light on the other end of the rotunda. The emergency lighting cloaked his face in shadow, showing off only his sharp horn and broad outline. I stepped backwards, my body flush against the wall I had just smacked into. "Aleksei...you don't want to do this," I stammered out. "Just stop. Please."

I hated baiting him. Especially since I wanted him to stop. But the look on his face...it was THE Look, the one everyone knows in the superpowered community, the one that says "I am going to come at you with the full thunder and fury and enjoy every minute of it." Coming from a hero, it means the world's biggest beat down is coming your way. Coming from a criminal like Aleksei, it means you're going to the morgue.

With a low roar that sounded like a subway train arriving, Aleksei lowered his horn and began to charge. I pushed away from the wall slightly as he started to run, bouncing on the balls of my feet. Too soon, and he'd just change course and nail me anyway. Too late, and I'd end up a smear, another mural on the wall of this fine museum. Grasp of physics and subconscious calculations, don't fail me now. Even in the dim light, the sharp tip of his horn glimmered. The painting on a nearby wall jumped with every step as the Rhino charged, intent on running me through, impaling me on that wicked weapon before throwing me to the side, disemboweling me in the process. I had to judge this just right...just right...

About two steps after my body was screaming "MOVE YOU IDIOT MOVE," I dove to my left, throwing my hands out and firing twin level twos at the gift shop door. The impact knocked it off of its hinges, and I slammed into the shop, knocking the door out of its frame amidst a shower of glass shards and wood splinters. I heard the loud crash behind me as I landed on my stomach. Gasping for breath, I rolled over, seeing what I had wrought.

His horn was buried in the wall to its hilt. The mural was ruined, cracks running from the impact zone all over the surface. Aleksei had both hands flush against the wall, trying to pull himself out. The sucker (I had to think of him this way) had slammed himself all the way to the steel security plating behind the wall. The muscles in his arms flexed under his armor as, gritting his teeth, he shoved backwards. A new crack appeared as he worked on freeing himself.

I moved to just out of his arms reach, and blasted him in the head with a level four from close range. I would have gone with a level five, but the wall would have been caught in the blast as well, making it easier for Aleksei to free himself. I jammed down both triggers, pouring as much vibration into him as possible. Any damage I did to him would just regenerate. I had to scramble his brain, or even shake his skull apart, and pray the time it took for him to grow a second head, I could figure out a way to take down Baron Mordo. The air between us as filled with small explosions, impacting against the side of his head. Over the sounds of my blasts, I could hear Aleksei yell in pain, just like the Hulk had earlier...

The yell became a roar. With a booming crack, the masonry and steel plating gave way as Aleksei yanked the piece of wall he was stuck in away. He staggered back, the wide piece of plaster blocking my view of him. I took a few steps away, raising my gloves to blast the masonry and maybe blind him. Before I could, though, the stone cracked, flying at me in large chunks as Aleksei simply punched his horn free. One piece caught me in the sternum, while a larger piece of the mural smacked me in the forehead. I felt a trickle of blood under my mask as I staggered backwards, stunned momentarily.

The back of Aleksei's hand impacted across the side of my face. One of my crowns came loose in my mouth as I flew backwards, crashing on my side in the middle of the gift shop. "If that was your grand plan, Herman, you're not as smart as I always thought you were," he said as he turned his body sideways to enter the gift shop. Aleksei flicked the last piece of plaster from his horn as I grabbed the counter to pull myself back to my feet.

"That was improv," I groaned, just before moving out of the way as a massive fist smashed into the counter, sending glass and knick-knacks everywhere. I spun back around, firing a level three as I stepped backwards. Aleksei followed, a wild roundhouse missing me and instead taking out a stack of museum guidebooks. The shop was a tightly packed series of display stands and clothing racks, and I kept bumping into them as I made my way towards the rear entrance to the shop. Aleksei didn't have that problem, easily smacking the merchandise stands aside as he came after me. I kept blasting, he kept throwing, and it didn't take long for the gift shop to look like a tornado had blown through. I turned for a second to blast open the back entrance, and that's when a steel clothing stand smacked me in the back. I barely felt it through my suit, but it was enough to cause me to stumble out of the shop into the museum's central hallway, and that was enough time for Aleksei to charge forward. His massive frame took out the walls to the side of the gift shop's back door, disintegrating the masonry, and he rammed his shoulder into the small of my back. Propelled through the air, I skidded along the floor when I landed, bouncing off a side wall before I came to a complete stop. The thumping footstep behind me encouraged me to move my ass, but all I could do was roll over before he was on top of me. With one hand, he picked me up by the face, his fingers gripping me tight. I saw red at the edges of my vision as the tips dug into my skull, squeezing me like an overripe tomato.

"I don't have to kill you, Herman. The zombies in the park have done more to kill hope than turning you to the Reaper's side could ever have done. I can have all the fun I want throwing you around like a rag doll, and that's just what I plan to do."

The red was turning to black as Aleksei flung me over one shoulder. As my vision stopped swimming, he spun around, and charged back through the same gift shop we had destroyed. His arm tucked me tight against his body, preventing me from squirming out. Snow globes and festive alarm clocks broke under Aleksei's feet, the rumbling of his passage knocking even more crap off the walls. The door would normally have been too big for my former friend, but he used my back as a battering ram, shattering the stone-and-glass wall before driving me down, whipping his arm forward and bodyslamming me on the floor. My back protested at the assault, arching off from the floor, as Aleksei ducked down on one knee over me.

Fist cocked back, he drove it down at my head. I could feel the air rushing past my ear as the punch missed, slamming into the floor as I moved out of the way purely by instinct. Stone chips flew into air as Aleksei raised his hand, and I barely managed to avoid another pounding blow, my head whipping to the side as his punch cracked the floor. He threw more blows, each one barely missing. Aleksei's face grew more and more angry, the foundation creaking underneath me with every shot that impacted. "Stay still so I can hit you, Herman," he growled as he pulled his fist back over his shoulder, winding up for a huge haymaker. Before he could swing, I reached up, grabbing for the ruined armor plate just above his heart. I could feel the sticky warmth of the ruined flesh underneath as I held tightly, using it to quickly pull myself up from the ground. I held down the trigger on my other gauntlet as I swung my fist, going all out as I slammed it into his face, firing off a level-four blast at the moment of impact.

Aleksei didn't roar in pain, but he was stunned for a moment, his fist still pulled back over his shoulder. Like a piston, I pulled my arm back, sacrificing power for speed, and decked him again, letting fly with another level-four that rocked his head back a few inches. I let out with a cry of frustration as my arm acted like a jackhammer, jabbing his face over and over again. His nose crunched, flattening against his face, blood spurting from the point of connection as I broke the bone and cartilage...

His fist finally crashed down as Aleksei let loose a roar of anger, slamming into my sternum. He drove down, shoving me away from his body into the floor. Something may have broken under my suit. It damn sure felt like it, as the next breath I drew was like pulling fire into my lungs. Aleksei kept his hand in place, pinning me to the ground, cutting off my breath as he pushed down on my chest. Blood dripped from his nose, splashing onto my armor, as he let out a low growl. The stone cracked underneath me as he shoved me down, my breastbone barely holding together under the pressure. "You think that hurt me, Herman? It barely scratched me. I'm stone. Immortal. Unbreakable."

"Yeah," I gasped. "You might be unbreakable. The floor ain't."

I balled my fists, and two level-fours exploded from my gauntlets as I slammed them into the floor. His eyes went wide, his fist pulling back to punch me again, but the second time I blasted the floor, the stone cracked, dipping slightly for a second, before gravity took hold. I felt the floor give way. We both fell for a second, the stone and steel underneath managing to stay together and support us, Aleksei stumbling to one knee. And that's where I blasted the floor, right underneath him. The tile gave way, and Aleksei went bye-bye. In a cloud of plaster dust, he disappeared. I could hear a loud boom, as the stairs underneath him gave way, and then an even bigger bang as he hit the floor in the lobby.

My chest ached as I got back to my feet. I was doubled over, trying to breathe normally, when the cracks in the remaining floor got bigger. I quickly stepped away, stumbling over to the balcony's railing overlooking the rotunda. Leaning on it for support, I looked down at the scene below. Aleksei's body was on its back, staring up at the ceiling. His arms were twitching, his legs feebly pawing at the floor. God damn it. I had hoped the fall would have put him down, unless he was in his death throes...though the moans told me otherwise. Alright. I had him on the ropes, I thought as I turned away. Maybe if I used level fives...

The balcony suddenly dropped. I grabbed onto the railing, stopping myself from plunging three stories. Behind me, spreading outward from the hole I had blasted in the floor, a spiderweb of cracks grew, branching out and spreading all over the third floor. "Oh, crap," I murmured as the piece of floor I stood on dipped again. I had less than a second to make my choice, and I did. Before I lost my footing, I judged the distance and braced myself and threw my body out into the air of the rotunda. An instant later, the balcony collapsed, falling into the second story and shattering into large chunks of stone.

I freefell through the air, trying not to let my arms flail. I had one shot at this, or else Herman Schultz was going to end up a smear on the floor of the Museum of Natural History. I aimed as best I could in the few seconds I plunged towards the lobby, flinging my hands out as the last minute and praying that I hit this. You could cram a lot of deity pleading into a moment as my palm brushed my intended target. My fingers instantly clenched, trying to find purchase. And they did, as sharp pain lanced through my hand. My other hand shot up, grabbing hold before the velocity of the fall ripped me away from my purchase.

The neck of the Barosaurus skeleton held. The steel rods holding the long neck aloft creaked, but didn't break, not even dipping from my added body weight. From here, it was only a one-story drop to the floor. My legs dangled as I tried to steady myself for the controlled fall. My fingers were caught in a small piece of its neck, but I was afraid to pull them free before I was ready. The grip on my other hand was slipping, and I had to glance up as they almost fell off to readjust. When I looked back down, there he was. Aleksei's face was bloody, still dripping from his broken nose. The smile on his face was a mockery of joy as he reached out for me, well out of range. "Herman," his deep voice said in a sing-song manner, "get down from there, this instant."

I could have blasted him, but both hands were busy making sure I didn't fall right into his grip. And the one kept slipping. I scrambled, my legs swinging wildly, trying to find something to hold on to...but my hand fell off. Immediately, all that pressure went to the hand pinched inside the neck, and the yell I let out echoed across the lobby. I tried to bring my other hand back up, but the pain was just too much, like my digits were being broken. Before I could stop myself, I let go, and fell immediately the short distance into Aleksei's waiting...

He moved backwards instead, and instead of him catching me, I slammed into the base of the Barosaurus exhibit. I rolled onto my side, groaning, as my back protested in pain. That pain soon became the last of my worries, though, as two strong hands picked me up, using my ears (well, the sides of my skull) to hoist me off the ground. Aleksei held me at arm's length, well away from his body. The blood from his nose had dried up, smeared all over the lower part of his face. No words, just clenched teeth as he squeezed my skull tightly. The pressure was too much to bear, and I cried out in agony. It felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my sockets. He had me...but I had him. Fighting through the pain that threatened to crack my skull, I did the same thing that had seemed to work earlier. Level fours right to his face. The space between us was filled with waves of overpressure as I poured everything my vibro-smashers had into him. The pressure on my head lightened as I assaulted him. Come on, this close, something, anything, had to snap. His palms moved away from my ears, but the fingers tightened their grip. One of us roared in anger, or maybe both of us, as he squeezed, I blasted, and someone had to break first. It couldn't be me. It couldn't be me. It couldn't be me...

My arms shook with the vibrations as the recoil and residual energy filled the air. The fingers on one hand ached from being pinched in the dinosaur's spine, and were now being forced to absorb point blank level-four blasts, which I rarely used to this damn long. Through the pain, I aimed directly at his face, the only exposed part of his body, narrow blasts, arms as far out as I could stretch them to minimize distance.

I had to hold...and I did. Aleksei broke first, pulling his hands back and staggering a few steps. His eyes leaked blood, a thin rivulet running down from where his tear ducts should have been. I managed to land, a bit wobbly, on the floor on both feet. I wasn't one for migraines, but that had to be what one felt like. Tears of my own were welling up, and I did my best to brush them away under my quilted armor. The cut on my forehead felt wetter, as if Aleksei squeezed blood and opened it wider. It didn't drip down into my eyes.

One of had to recover first. And this time, it was the undead guy who didn't have to worry about breathing or other circulatory functions. I barely had time to get my head up, which was a mistake as Aleksei's shoulder cracked into my jaw. All that mass, one point of impact, and he skidded a little further, but sent me flying backwards.

If they were still alive, Aleksei and I just ruined future field trips for thousands of little kids as he drove me into the skeleton of the Barosaurus. I slammed into one of the front legs, stopping immediately as I hit bone as hard as a rock. I slid down the shin, resting on the foot itself. Aleksei stared at me, his arms crossed over his broad chest, as metaphorical stars danced around my head. I heard something crack. But it wasn't Aleksei cracking his knuckles, like I had expected. I looked up, sighing as I realized what was happening. The Barosaurus' neck was wobbling, shaking all the way down its spine. The freestanding fossil, the centerpiece of the entire Rotunda, was falling apart from the impact, and it was going to come down on Aleksei and me.

I put pressure on my hand to push myself into a tuck-and-roll, but it was the hand with the pinched fingers. By the time I overcame the shock of sudden pain, the steel rods that supported the dinosaur's frame were snapping, and the long slender neck of the skeleton was giving way under its own weight. That was Aleksei's concern, however. Mine was the torso of the skeleton that had suddenly dropped forward. I made my decision as the entire dinosaur came crashing down, the leg I had been thrown against giving way. Maybe two tons of bone fell towards me, and I was resorting to a trick seen in old pulp novels and movie serials. The two front legs cracked, one right after the other, cutting out the support of the ribcage and bringing the whole thing slamming into the ground.

Around me.

There was just enough room for me, curling into the tightest ball I possibly could, to fit underneath the ribcage. All around me, spears of ancient bone crashed into the tile floor of the rotunda. I had my arms over my head, as the stone floor gave way to the fossils, chips flying into the air. It was one loud boom, the thump echoing across the rotunda, followed by another, smaller crash. That would be the neck, and instead of the cracking of bone on tile, it was the thump of bone on body armor. Aleksei had decided not to move. As I peeked out from between my fingers, the neck fell across the edge of his broad shoulder. My former friend didn't even flinch as the bones rolled off his shoulder, falling to the ground in a straight line. The skull crashed behind him, and Aleksei just stood there, arms still crossed across his massive chest, staring at my huddled form as I slowly pulled my arms away from my head. Ok. My plan to save my bacon had worked. That was the good news. The bad news was, when I had my wrists up by my head covering my face, I noticed something very bad. The energy meter on the side of my gauntlets, both of them, were in the red. The level threes and fours I had been throwing around, the ones that had barely made a dent in Aleksei, had damn near drained me dry. I had very few left in me, a couple of fours, half a dozen threes, and one level five, roughly, in each. And Aleksei was still standing, and Mordo still had the Darkhold, and Ms. Marvel was still gone, and the zombies were still in Central Park, and...

Aleksei walked forward as I went over the litany of just how screwed and out of options I was. Two gray hands grabbed at the ribcage. The muscles bulged under Aleksei's armor as he strained to lift the obstruction between me and him. The points of the fossils slowly rose out of the floor, parts of the exhibit's base sticking to the sharp ends. With a roar, Aleksei lifted the ribcage free. I ducked, dropping completely to the floor on my stomach, as Aleksei turned to the side, ripping the ribcage away from the hind legs and flinging it across the rotunda. Several small exhibits scattered as the fossil slammed into them, before coming to a rest, sandwiching a souvenir stand against the wall at the moment of impact.

The boom echoed in my ears as I scrambled away, retreating in the opposite direction. I couldn't stand and get into a slugging match with Aleksei with my vibro-smashers almost out of juice. I had two options. One, find a place where I could jam new batteries into my gauntlets and get back to full power. Two, somehow come up with a way to drop Aleksei with one (or two) level five shot (shots).

Some of you out there hearing this tale, I know what you're yelling. There was a way to one-shot my former friend. "It's right there, right in front of you!" And a few of you are right. It was damn near in my face, the apple on the tree of knowledge, and all I really had to do was reach out and pluck it. And you'd think a guy like me, who knows a thing about plans, how they go south, and how to improv on the fly, would have picked up on it right away. Well…it's like driving down an icy road. You start to slide, and your brain locks up like your brakes. All you think about is the fact that you're sliding, not how you're going to stop sliding. Right now, I was more concerned with the fact that I was fighting my friend then how I was going to win. Every time I tried to form an idea or plan, it always went back to fighting Aleksei. I was looking to retreat and reload, that was my plan.

I was heading for the west hallway, leading to more exhibits deeper into the museum, when something sailed over my head, barely avoiding taking my head off. The ribcage tore gouges in the painted plaster as it slammed into the hallway, bouncing about in the enclosed space for a brief moment before crashing onto the floor. Yeah, that had been my exit, and now, a 65 million year old fossil was blocking it.

"You're not going to run away, Herman, are you? I'm finally having fun." I turned to look at my former friend, who was making his way towards me. "Smashing stuff, breaking things…that's what the Rhino does, right?" Aleksei stopped in the center of the rotunda, his arms hanging loose at his sides. "Big dumb Rhino, a bull in a china shop. That's all I ever was to you, Herman, a stupid fire-and-forget weapon."

"You know that's crap, Aleksei." He was coming at me, and the only thing I could do was press myself against the back wall of the hallway. The ribcage was wedged in tight, like a couch stuck on a switchback landing, and there wasn't a damn bit of room for me to squeeze underneath or through the ancient ribs. And walking right at Aleksei wasn't an attractive option either. I put out my arms, palms flat against the mural that lined the long hallway. "If you're expecting me to stand here and call you some kind of genius, I ain't going to waste my breath. Because I know that's not you in there, Aleksei. It's just something using your body like a puppet. You don't know a damn thing you're trying to talk about."

"That's what you think. Dillon still had his issues with his mother. Toomes reveled in being damn near young again. Me? I'm enjoying breaking things." The entrance to the hallway wasn't an option anymore, as my armored opponent filled the entire space. "I'm Aleksei, Herman, and you're nothing more than a trapped rat."

"Shows how much you know about rats. I actually took a page out of them." I pushed my palms against the wall, and jammed down on the triggers of both gauntlets with a level four. "Rats always have an escape route."

The vibrations from my weapons went right into the wall. Normally, I'd just blow through the wall, using the energy from my blasts like a shotgun. Sometimes...rarely, but sometimes...finesse was called for. The concrete and wires simply shook apart from the energy, and the wall dropped like a waterfall. Aleksei's red eyes went wide as what had been an expertly painted mural became an exit to the outside world. He started forward, feet stomping, but I was already moving, stepping out onto the thin lip of concrete that ran along the outside of the Museum's first floor. "HERRRRRRRRMAN," he screamed as I immediately scrambled to the left, my hands clutching the side of the building as the cold of the autumn night and the horrible moans both hit me at once. My fingers dug into the stone, the quilted pattern of my armor giving my feet traction on the small stone lip, as I side-stepped away from the hole. A gray hand reached out, swiping in the air as I moved away, before pulling back in. "You're not going to get away that easily," I could hear him bellow before the sound of his rage was swallowed up by the sounds coming from behind and below.

My ass was hanging out over the zombie horde, about ten feet above them, standing on maybe nine inches of concrete. Behind me, the stream of undead continued to pour into Central Park, thinner than the initial rush, but still, that's like the Blob saying he'd lost 50 pounds, it ain't enough to make that much of a difference. Below me, the zombies that had been closest to the museum had turned their attention towards me. Almost six rows deep of the living dead crushed against the stone wall, hands reaching up at me. Their mouths were wide open, their moans sounding like they were coming from Hades, and their eyes, pleading, urgent, as they reached up at me, well out of their reach. Didn't matter to them, though. I was meat, and I was close, and they were letting every one of their brothers and sisters know it.

Now, if you're thinking "damn, Herman, out of the frying pan and your ass is getting singed by the proverbial fire," you ain't too far off. My little escape had been born of desperation, the only way out available to me. One slip, and I was going to become food for a thousand hungry zombies, with no Thor or Ms. Marvel to bail my ass out. But at the end of this lip, all the way to the left, a fire escape, it's ladder up, was attached to the side of the Museum. If I could make it there, I could make it anywhere inside the museum, any floor, away from Aleksei. It'd give me a chance to swap in some fresh power packs. And maybe most important, it'd give me time to come up with some kind of real plan...

Alright, Herman. How about we actually get to the fire escape first?

SHIELD and Osborn's new Thunderbolts were still in the fight. I could hear the sounds of combat coming from the other side of museum. Might as well be on the other side of the world at this point. Slowly, I slid my foot to the left. I leaned forward towards the museum as far as I could, keeping my weight evenly distributed. My fingers felt for any little nook or crevice in the hewed stone, carefully pressing like I was spinning a combination dial or picking a lock. Only when I saw sure everything was stable and sure did I carefully move my right foot, sliding it along. My right hand came last, grabbing onto the small cable that ran down the side of the museum. Great. Four feet down. Hundreds more to go. Well, standing here bitching wasn't going to get me to the damn fire escape, was it?

"Herrrrmannnn..." Aleksei's low gravelly voice drifted from the opening as I scooched my second scooch. If you can come up with a better word, go for it, I'm sticking with scooching. "...you know this won't work. Come back inside. I promise, I'll make it quick."

Yeah...if Aleksei was telling me not to do it, I was going to do it. I shut his voice out. And I did my best to shut out the zombies below me. I knew I could look down and see New Yorkers torn to shreds, missing limbs, organs ripped from their bodies, reaching up for me. All that matter was the nine inches of stone I'm standing on, about...two hundred feet of it? Let's call it that, it's a low, round number I can deal with.

It was just like picking a safe. Slow, steady, and rushing it would trip the alarm...or trip me, and cause me to stumble. A stumbling Shocker is a dead Shocker. The nerves in my body were trying to convince me to go faster as I carefully set my left foot down. It took every single amount of patience I could muster as I slid along the thin lip. Every handhold had to be solid. Every step had to be firm. The past week in New York had been dry, so I didn't have to worry about slick spots on the stone. This was all me. Just me, and a plan. A crazy, out-there, no-way-in-hell-it-will-work plan.

I love those kind of plans. They tend to come out in my favor, even if getting to the end result ain't the best trip in the world.

Left hand. Left foot. Right foot. Right hand. Rinse, and repeat. The motions quickly became familiar to me, but I never let them become rote. Every single movement I made was done with the utmost precision and care, each motion an exercise in patience and terror. I treated it like casing a joint before a job. Every time you got comfortable, you dragged yourself back to reality, because it's when you got complacent that things went south.

They were still there, the moans, but like any good New Yorker, I tuned out the background noise. When I glanced down to make sure my feet were on solid footing, I could see their fingers scrabbling at the stone below me. But for the most part, I kept my eyes front, scanning the wall for any handhold. I could have vibrated my way back inside, but that would put me in the hallway that the Barosaurus ribcage had blocked at one end. If Aleksei was waiting for me at the other end...I had plan, and I committed to it. Left hand. Left foot. Right foot. Right hand.

The fire escape inched closer as I made my way foot by foot along the tiny lip. Years of cracking safes meant my fingers were used to this type of delicate work, but my feet were beginning to complain, as my toes and assorted other bones burned from supporting my body weight. Complaint noted. Moving on. I had no idea how much time had passed. All I knew was the fire escape was closer, and I hadn't become lunch yet.

My forearms were beginning to ache, but I was three-fourths of the way there. I wanted to speed up, but slow and steady...

And speaking of slow and steady, it decided to make a reappearance.

Left hand. Left foot. Gray hand punching through the wall.

The sound of shattering stone caused my head to whip around. It was about a hundred feet to my right, a massive fist sending debris into the air as it slammed through the outer wall. The chips of stone falling on their heads got the attention of a few walking corpses as the hand pulled back. A few seconds later, another hole was punched through the thick stone, about ten feet to the left of the last one, at about the same level as my head.

"Damn it," I muttered, afraid to raise my voice and give away my location. Left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand. As I set up for another scooch, the third impact of Aleksei's fist into the stone shook my handhold, just for a brief moment. In response, I clutched the wall, making damn sure I didn't slip. That was time wasted, as Aleksei's hand pulled back into the museum, only to break through ten feet down the line.

It was the slowest, but most important race of my damn life. I couldn't go fast, but I had to. I couldn't waste time planting my feet and securing my hands, but I had to. Left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand. Fist through the wall, a chunk of concrete flying into the air and smashing into the skull of a New York City Transit worker. Move it, Herman, don't worry about what you can't control...

Each time Aleksei smashed through the steel and concrete, it sent vibrations down the line, all the way to me. Tiny ones, most of their energy absorbed by the stone, but just enough to give me pause. The fire escape now seemed miles away, but I kept going. Left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand. "Oh, God." Left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand. "Come on." Left hand...

It was bound to happen. My foot slipped, my left boot not quite finding the entire lip. Gravity took an instant hold, pulling my entire body towards the ground. My left hand clutched at the drainpipe as I whipped my foot back towards the ledge, planting it firmly. It took a few seconds for me to realize I was hyperventilating, my lungs working overtime, my heart beating a mile a minute. And to my right, as I clutched the stone with every square inch of fabric I could muster, the jackhammer sounds of a fist breaking stone getting closer and closer. Panic started to well up inside of me, and it took every single bit of strength I could muster to stop it in its tracks. Left hand left foot right foot right hand. My breathing threatened to spiral out of control, but I could handle that. Keep moving, Herman, keep moving!

That little voice in my head, the seed of self-doubt I had fought for years and years, was whispering into my conscious. I couldn't make it. My velocity (A) was less than Aleksei's velocity (B), and since we were moving in the same direction towards the fire escape (C), with B A, B will reach C before A reaches C, and damn it, my last thoughts are not going to be working out a simple physics problem! I'm a guy who built a pair of gloves that can level a building out of junk I found in a prison metal shop, so if there's anyone on this damn planet still breathing that could break the laws of physics...ok, I couldn't break them, but I was damn sure going to bend them.

Yeah, great words, but that still didn't solve my problem that Aleksei was moving faster than me. But I kept going, hand, foot, foot, hand. "I know you're out here, Herman," I could hear Aleksei bellow through the holes he had driven into the wall. "And when I find you, you're going on a one-way trip, straight down!"

If Aleksei had been wise enough to start at the other end of the hallway, I would have been a goner. But that didn't provide too much comfort. I tried to stop worrying and focus solely on the wall, but when Aleksei's fist punched through the wall ten feet from where I was currently standing, it wouldn't take a genius like me to figure out where the next punch was going to break on through. I had to risk it. I wasn't too sure of my handhold as I slid my foot over, and I wasn't sure of my footing when I slid my foot over, and...you see where this is going, don't you? Well, it wasn't like that.

I managed to slide a good bit away with less-than-optimal footing and grip, maybe two or three more movements from the fire escape, when Aleksei's hand annihilated the wall. The majority of the concrete flew out over the crowd, raining down on the horde of zombies, but the vibration of the impact, along with just the pure shock of it, hit me full force.

My fingers slipped.

My arms windmilled, trying to keep my balance. Gravity had a hold of my neck, and immediately, my weight shifted backwards, pulled along by my arms even as they lunged forward. So desperate to keep my balance, I just couldn't bring my body forward to grab at the wall. All those Three Stooges shows I had seen on TV flashed across my mind, the stereotypical guy moving his hips and his arms to stay upright even when he knew it was over. My torso went just a bit over the top, and gravity had its win. I could hear the eager groans of the hungry dead below me as that spark ignited in their brains that dinner was about to be served.

The final thought that went through my mind was if I would feel any pain if I blasted myself in the head with a level five before the zombies started to eat me.

Right by my head, Aleksei's fist grazed my ear as he punched his next hole in the wall, just like clockwork. On the upswing, my left arm caught one of his fingers, and I brought up my right arm the moment I had a semblance of a grip. I locked my arms around Aleksei's forearm, using it as a handhold to pull myself back up onto the ledge. I damn near felt his roar of anger as he yanked his arm back through the wide open hole. I slammed, chest first, into the hole, and the jagged concrete made the best handhold I could think of. The hole itself was a mess, with steel cables and some sparking wires filling the space between me and Aleksei. From what I could make out in dim light, my former friend was NOT happy. His teeth were bared, his eyes narrow. Maybe he was going to yell at me again, maybe he was going to roar. I'd never find out, because I jammed one of my fists into the hole and let out a level five right into his face.

I felt the small vibration in my palm telling me that gauntlet was now completely dry as the air in the tunnel exploded in a flash of blue, slamming into Aleksei's face. My biggest attack shoved Aleksei's backwards, away from the hole, swiping at his face like he was trying to bat the air away. Immediately, I pulled back and scrambled to my left. The fire escape was right there, and it only took a few motions for me to get within reach of the metal stairs. I grabbed on, and quickly vaulted myself over. And just in time, because right as I pulled myself over the railing, the wall behind me exploded. Two fists this time. Did I say explode? I meant disappeared, in a cloud of dust. The fire escape groaned at the loss of support as I pulled himself to my feet and scrambled up the narrow stairs to the second floor. "HERMAN! YOU ARE NOT GETTING AWAY!"

As I turned the corner, Aleksei was leaning out of the huge hole he made. Both hands wrapped around the fire escape where it was anchored to the building, and I felt the whole structure shift downward. The groan of bending metal was evident over the groan of the zombies as the fire escape slowly tilted, torn away by the pure strength Aleksei possessed. One of my hand held onto a railing while, with all the power I had left, I blasted the hinges on the second floor's fire exit. The heavy door shifted on its frame before falling forward onto the landing. Even as it was falling, I was diving, easily flying through the opening and landing on my stomach back inside the museum's Birds of the World exhibit. Oh, sweet, sweet solid tile flooring...

With a screech, the fire escape collapsed behind me. I turned onto my back, sitting up, to watch the twisted metal fall past the wide open doorway. My heart was still going 100 miles-per-hour, and my bladder kept insisting I should be peeing my pants after that experience. "YOU CAN'T RUN, HERMAN! I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!"

"Yeah, yeah," I breathed, before climbing to my feet. I heard the booming footsteps below me, and since I was looking at a set of stairs, Aleksei wasn't bluffing. He knew exactly where I was. I forced myself up, and took off. I passed through the Hall of African Peoples, streaming past darkened exhibits, and into the Akeley Gallery. To the south was what was left of the gift shop, my eyes drawn to the destruction as I ran past priceless works of art. I needed a place to hide, to stop, and not let my footsteps give me away. Aleksei's passage wasn't subtle. I knew he was somewhere behind me.

I pushed through an emergency door at the end of the Gallery, thanking any and all available deities that the alarm didn't go off. I was back in the hallway Ms. Marvel and I had first walked. The entrance to the brand new veranda was to my left. But to my right was a dark classroom. That's what I wanted. I could hear Aleksei behind me, faintly. I eased into the room, opening the door a crack and closing it a crack. This room, as opposed to the rest of the museum, was completely dark. Good.

I made my way to the lectern, dropping behind it to completely hide myself from anyone who looked inside. Aleksei's vision hadn't been the best when he was still alive, and years of ducking around corners to hide from Spider-Man had taught me how to swap out power cartridges silently. Hell, maybe Aleksei wouldn't even think to try the emergency door...ah, there you go again, Herman, counting on luck.

Echoes of Aleksei's taunts reached me as I popped fresh batteries into my gauntlets. My gloves' energy meters filled to green, showing a full charge for both weapons, doing wonders for my ego. Alright. I could throw out a couple of level fives, but at this point, I wasn't sure I could do anything to him. And I really didn't feel comfortable going after Baron Mordo with Aleksei stalking me. So, how the hell do I take Aleksei down? Well, lucky for me, I was in a museum. And they always had technology and scientific gear. Maybe I could jury rig something out of some spare parts and a couple of exhibits. Granted, stuff from the Birds of the World and the Hall of African Peoples wasn't going to help me too much in stopping a walking tank, but the Rose Center for Earth and Space was right across the hallway. If I couldn't find something in that place to help me, I wasn't worth my salt as an engineer.

My heart slowed down. My breathing returned to normal. It didn't matter that I was in a museum surrounded by zombies, being stalked by my best friend, one floor above a sorcerer working apocalypse magic. Stand back, everyone. Herman Schultz was about to do science.

I crept out of the classroom after listening at the door for a few moments, confirming that it was silent outside. It was a short trip through a switchback corridor, and there I was. In front of me, the center piece of the Rose Center sat lifeless, a perfect sphere that taught students and visitors the secrets of the world beyond the stars. I could stand here forever...hey, sometimes even a thug wonders what life's like on another planet. No time for that now, though. In front of me were the Scales of the Universe, a long pathway winding around the large Hayden Sphere that sat in the middle of the place. Carefully watching my steps, I crept along the glass hallway. I passed representations of Jupiter and Saturn, its 17-foot rings pale in comparison to the rest of the universe. Galaxies, supernovas...were the dead rising out there, too? Oh, there's a great thought.

The Scales wrapped around the entire second floor. The very end, almost back where I started, was all about the Earth and its moon. All I had seen during my little jaunt were holographic projectors and slide cameras. Even here, the exhibit about the Earth's moon was a bunch of pictures, from the initial Space Race of the 1960's, to man's return in the 70's, all the way up to a few years ago, when Colonel John Jameson had stepped foot on the moon in the months following 9/11. They even had his spacesuit hanging up, along with his compressor in a case next...

...

...no way. You're kidding me. This isn't happening. I'm imagining this.

I rushed over to the compressor. "Oh, sweetheart..." I said like it was the damn Hope Diamond. "...tell me you're a working model." And the card affixed to the front of the display told me it was better than that. "This is the air compressor Colonel John Jameson used when he landed on the moon," I read quietly as I studied the case. "This compressor, a Stark Industries design, could help fit three times more air into an astronaut's tank." And the damn thing wasn't even alarmed. My lockpicks let me pop the case with a minimum of noise and effort. This was it. This was exactly what I needed to stand toe-to-toe with Aleksei. It went beyond that. This is the damn thing I needed to drop him, once and for all. And the best part? My power packs were still compatible with this thing after all these years.

I pulled the compressor out of its case, and just like before, slapped my last pair of fresh batteries into the power chamber before slinging the whole rig over my shoulders. The machinery was a weight on my back I wasn't used to, but I'd adapt. Oh, man, would I adapt. The cables that would go to the air canisters, I plugged them right into my gauntlets. I swung my arms a few times to work out the kinks in the cables and get a feel for the compressor. For the last thing, I crossed the fingers on my left hand as my right hand reached back and hit the compressor's power switch...

The hum that flowed onto my back was better than sex. Well...not literally. But right now, it was the best feeling in the world. Alright. Time to see if this is really going to work. I raised my gauntlet towards the large scale model of Jupiter, and held down the trigger like I was tossing out a level three. The energy lashed out of my hand like a bolt of lightning, a vibrating shock of blue that cracked Jupiter in half. The bottom portion came undone, falling past the Hayden Sphere to the first floor. I heard the impact, the model shattering into thousands of pieces on the ground. Damn right. Just what I had been hoping for. And I'm sure the model of Jupiter was insured.

Herman Schultz had walked into the Rose Center. It was the Shocker who walked out. The compressor on my back hummed as it worked with my gauntlets, the technology a quick and dirty plug-and-play that was about to save my ass and kill my friend. I focused on the first part as I walked past the classroom I had taken refuge in only minutes before, and made my way to the emergency door back into the Akeley Gallery. Screw subtlety. I had spent too much time cowering, hiding, and pleading, leaping and running for my life. No more. Whatever had taken over my best friend was going down. It was the same feeling I had back in St Patrick's when I squared off with Electro, that heroic feeling, that sense of "I am not going to lose." And I wasn't.

I kicked open the door, and walked back into the gallery. Rows and rows of priceless artwork and sculpture lined the walls as my fingers ran along the edges of the vibro-smashers' triggers. "ALEKSEI! HERE I AM! RIGHT HERE! COME AND GET ME!"

X

Silence after my voice echoed through the empty corridors. Then came the footsteps, from the far end of the gallery. Faint at first, slowly growing louder, each step deliberate. No hurry, no rush. The Rhino was going to take his time getting here, to let me worry and bemoan my fate. Oh, not tonight, kids. Not tonight. I was bouncing, like a kid in a candy store or a businessman at Score's with a fistful of ones. Come on, big guy. I really don't want to do this to one of the few guys who ever had my back, but I don't have a choice.

Eventually, he came into few at the far end of the Gallery. No taunting from him, and none from me, either. Nothing verbal, anyway. I just nodded at him, moving my head up like I was calling him over. That's right, big guy, just come straight at me. This wasn't just about physically hurting him. This was going to be a morale check on my part.

He just stared at me in the dim red light for a moment. "I am glad to see you're accepting your fate, Herman." No response came from me as he lowered his horn, dipping it towards me almost in salute. His feet pushed off, legs pumping, as he quickly hit his full stride. The sculptures jumped on the wall, a painting crashing to the floor as he ran past. His arms swung, adding to his speed, horn dipped down for the killing blow. Hit me in the chest, raise up, swing to the side, and instant disembowelment. I stood my ground, no nerves, no panic, no voice telling me to move. Even my self-doubt knew, at this moment, I had him.

When he crossed twenty feet, I whipped up my arms. My thumbs pressed down on the triggers, and I gave him a level ten right to the skull.

Yeah, you read that right. A level ten.

A couple of years ago, I was on the run from the Scourge of the Underworld, yet another vigilante who loved to show up, pop a third-or-fourth tier bad guy, and vanish into the night. For some reason, this guy had a real mad-on against me, and my ass fled all the way to sunny Rio to avoid him. Warm sand and hot Latino women soothed my fears for a while, but like that song says, paranoia runs deep. After a few weeks of not being able to sleep and jumping at shadows, I decided to come back to New York City and confront the vigilante on my terms. And my terms involved a lot more firepower than I was packing at the time.

Even down in Rio, I kept an eye on the Big Apple, getting a copy of the Daily Bugle delivered to my shack every day. When I saw a mention of John Jameson's upcoming moonshot, I knew I had my ace-in-the-hole. I flew back up to New York City that next day. Immediately, that damn Spider-Man was on my trail, sniffing around and getting in my way. He didn't stop me, though, from getting my hands on that compressor. Of course, the bastard...and yeah, I still think of him that way. I won't beat him senseless if I come across him in an alleyway anymore, but once a punk, always a punk...the bastard hangs in there, works his damn magic, and beats the tar out of me. I end up in the Vault, the furthest thing from Rio you could possibly find, and the compressor goes up into space. Guess I got lucky, because when I thought I needed it, I couldn't use it, and now that I DO need it, it's right here in the middle of a space exhibit.

So what's so damn special about this compressor that has me treating it like a naked and willing Ms. Marvel? Like the plaque on the exhibit said, this piece of machinery can pump three times the amount of air into a canister. Ponder that for a second. Yeah, you're getting it now. My vibro-smashers work by exploding the air around them and throwing it at the target in the form of a blast. So...what happens when those vibro-smashers are pre-loaded with a whole bunch of compressed air, oxygen and nitrogen crammed together, looking for some form of outlet? Putting it as simply as I can, you get the equivalent of jamming an extended ammo drum full of high explosive bullets onto a Tommy Gun and letting it rip. Basically, I just upgunned my vibro-smashers. Given time, I could triple the amount of firepower my vibro-smashers using this compressor. Quick and dirty like, I'm only able to double my firepower. Yeah, double it.

If Aleksei was the ultimate walking tank, you were looking at the ultimate Panzerfaust, and it's name, fittingly enough, is Herman Schultz.

The blast rippled down the hall. Paint peeled away from the walls. Sculptures turned to shrapnel. Painters splintered. Somewhere, an insurance adjustor had a heart attack. And Aleksei came to a halt as the energy slammed into him. The hallway exploded as it looked like he ran into a wall made of solid diamond for a moment, before suddenly bending backwards. He fell to the ground, landing on his broad back, bringing anything still loosely hanging on the walls of the Galley crashing with him.

I would have felt damn good at this moment, finally taking Aleksei down without putting myself in harm's way. But in all the excitement, I had forgotten one tiny, but damn important rule. Newton's Third Law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, it was me being shoved backwards by the sheer amount of compressed air blasting from my gauntlets. I landed on my butt, the compressor digging into my tailbone at the impact. "Ow! Damn it," I cursed. I knew I had forgot something, the damn recoil. I had to brace myself with every shot, or else every time I blasted Aleksei, I'd end up on my ass.

I got to my feet, wincing at the pain in my butt, as Aleksei rolled onto his side. "What...what trickery is this," he proclaimed, one fist pounding the tile floor, sending pieces of marble and painted canvas into the air.

"Trickery? Damn, joining the Grim Reaper upped your vocabulary." I fired another level ten. The floor around Aleksei buckled, the tile rising in a series of waves as the energy flowed all around it. He put a hand to his face, covering his eyes as dust and debris filled the air. "Equal terms, Aleksei. That's what it is. Get up so I can knock you down again," I growled.

"No...I'm the Rhino! This isn't..."

"Life sucks, Aleksei. I'm sorry to do this to you, but you're in my way, and you're not going to move until I make you move."

The next level ten made him flinch as it washed over him, his eyes squeezing shut. The hallway way down to its bare bones, the skeletal structure of the hallway showing, thick steel security plates that stood up to the assault of my blasts. "Fine! If this is how you want to play it, Herman, come at me!" My gloves energy meter was already at three-quarters, so I had to dial it down. And get in one good shot at his face. I don't care who you are, alive, dead, undead, Iron Man, Molecule Man, the Rhino...a level ten will scramble your brain.

Aleksei pulled himself to his feet. Both his hands went out towards me, his fingers motioning for me to come at him. "You can't hurt me, Herman! Come on!" One gray finger turned and pointed at his face, jabbing at his broken nose. "Right here. A free shot, just to prove you can't do a damned thing!"

"You asked for it." Both hands came up, my fingers holding down the triggers. Two level tens, aimed square at his skull. My foot went back to brace myself. I had never in my life handled power like this. It came from my gauntlets in waves, a stream of blue energy, vibrating and exploding across the distance. My ankle almost buckled under the recoil before I found my balance. Aleksei's face was covered by the blasts, his fists at his sides now. There was nothing left of the prized Akeley Gallery. The precious artwork and painted walls with carved fixtures were destroyed beyond any hope of recognition. "Come on, you bastard," I hissed, "die, for real this time!" Aleksei fell to one knee, and I poured it on, taking advantage of the sign of weakness.

The glare of the energy faded away as I released the triggers. My arms shook from the vibrations that had almost overloaded my suit, threading its capacity. He had to have fallen. Nothing could have withstood it.

"Herman," the ruined figure in front of me said, pushing up from one knee. "Your blasts couldn't stop the Hulk. What makes you think they could stop me?"

He had no skin left. His face was a mash of cartilage and bone, the only bits of flesh remaining hanging from where his suit of armor pressed against his body. "Oh, come ON," I proclaimed, more frustrated than scared. Teeth were missing, disintegrated under my assault. His jaw had a hairline crack. His nose was barely visible. And one arm hung loosely to his side, possibly broken. But he was still active, swaying slightly to one side. No way...Aleksei was strong, but this...

"What the hell it is going to take?"

"You'll never know, Herman." He lumbered towards me, one staggering step at a time. "No matter what you do, I'll win. You can't possibly compare to someone like me..."

Click.

"You're not healing."

Aleksei dragged himself to a sudden halt. "What? What did you say?"

The light bulb in my head flared to life. "You're not healing." By now, his skin should have begun to knit itself over his skull. The fine powder I had ground his teeth into should have been forming a tooth-shaped cloud in his mouth. His nose should have inflated like a balloon being pumped full of helium. "You should be healing, Aleksei. And you're not."

"Herman...you're grasping for straws," Aleksei murmured. "It's over..."

"No. It's not." I don't know what it was, but something...he should have regenerated, like Black Talon, like Chondu, like Electro. He shouldn't have had a broken, destroyed face. "You're not regenerating. And...your voice. You're not talking like you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't sound like you. I know you, Aleksei. You don't talk like you're talking now...Electro and the Vulture had the same...speech patterns. You don't." The pieces were falling into place. "No regeneration, and a different personality...and impossible to hurt...you're Aleksei, but you're not him...on the roof. On the roof, Aleksei. When we were back on the roof of the warehouse, we talked about someone. Someone you were embarrassed to talk about. Who was it?"

I crossed my arms, staring at him. He was motionless now, the damage I had inflicted on him stagnant. His eyes boiled red, but...everything else just seemed different. A little hunch. A bit of a slouch. "Herman...this is your last..."

"ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!" I took a step forward, my hands pointed at him. "You've been taunting me, telling me how much you hated me for what happened to you, how you wish I hadn't become who I turned into this past week. I had to fight through all of that, that mental pain. I may be a simple thug, but I know friendship...and you screwed with that. I hate having my head screwed with. So, prove to me you're really you, Aleksei."

"It's a..."

"You don't know."

"This is worthless! If you're going to defeat me, defeat me like a man!"

"You can't answer me."

"I won't waste..."

"You have no idea who I'm talking about."

"It's not important!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW!"

Roll to disbelieve.

The illusion fell away. One moment, he was a battered and torn mess of a former human being. The next, he was the biggest zombie I had seen next to the Hulk. His skin went from pink to pale gray. His curses and bellows became ragged moans. And all along his gray armor, green runes glowed, a mix of curves, swirls, and lines that even someone like me recognized as magic.

"You're a zombie under someone's control, like the Hulk."

There it was. The illusion had served its purpose. So focused on the idea of having to kill my best friend, I didn't see the obvious solution to my problem. The way to kill Aleksei. And now, I was overpowered enough to do it.

I walked right up to him. The zombie Aleksei groaned, a hand reaching out for me, but it was weak, a futile gesture with a broken arm that I easily avoided. Without reservation, I jammed my hand into the gaping wound in his chest. I pushed past the sticky warmth that gripped at me, ignoring the jagged edges of bone that poked into my forearm. I turned my fist upward, pointing the edge of my gauntlet towards the base of his skull.

"You're not Aleksei. Get out of my friend."

I held down the trigger, a level ten racing through his body from the inside. It was the same way Norman Osborn had killed Aleksei, back on that rooftop. It was how I was going to send my friend to his well deserved final rest. The waves of energy rebounded off of the tough skin, bouncing around inside of his body, like throwing a grenade in a closet and then slamming the door shut. I felt the energy tear at my hand, but I kept the trigger down anyway, fighting through the hot pins-and-needles sensation that poked at my arm. Aleksei immediately stiffened, lifting me with him as his body went straight. The sound of exploding air banging through his body sounded like popcorn in the microwave, small kernels popping. He staggered to one side, his head bowed, hands pressing to his skull. And still, I kept my trigger down. I wasn't losing. Aleksei was going to die, for good. My suit wasn't absorbing the waves of energy anymore, the skin on my arm feeling like hot knives were being dragged across it. The energy had nowhere else to go, trapped inside the body of Aleksei by virtue of his suit. They bounced and bounced again, like wavelengths overlapping, building on each other to a higher and higher crest. I shifted slightly, ignoring the pain in my wrist as a piece of bone jabbed into it. Come on...Hydro-Man destroyed the Hulk's brain with the power of water pressure. Air pressure had to work the same way...

He swung to the side, his hands now digging into his skull. Blood began to pour from the remains of his eyes and his ears. Aleksei opened his mouth, and red liquid dropped like a spilled cup of coffee. "Come on...get out of my friend. Get out of my friend. GET OUT OF MY FRIEND AND LET HIM REST IN PEACE, YOU BASTARD!"

A loud roar ripped down the hallway as Aleksei's body arched, his head thrown back in agony...and then his face exploded. Chucks of bone and blood flew into the air as the waves of pressure overwhelmed the strength of his chemically enhanced bones. My mask was covered in brain matter and bits of skull as all the energy I had shoved into Aleksei rushed out of the opening in his face, a whoosh of compressed air escaping into the air. His body pulled away from my arm with a prolonged squishy noise, the never-healed wound slurping along my uniform as Aleksei, for the final time, fell. His massive body crashed onto the steel plating that was now the floor of the Akeley Gallery. Where his smiling face had once been was now an empty gray cavity, a soupy red mix swishing back and forth at the bottom.

He was done. Fallen. Deceased. Dead. I had just killed my best friend. And had bits of him on me.

"Oh...oh, GROSS!" I brushed my face with my unbloodied arm, the wetness seeping into my uniform and down to my skin. "Damn it! Ew! EW!" The only thing stopping me from ripping my mask off right then and there was how badly the zombie Aleksei probably smelled. I stumbled from the Gallery into the Hall of African Mammals, dropping to my knees in the middle of the exhibit. I pulled my mask off, gasping for fresh air. "Uh...uh...uh," I dry heaved, my body trying to throw up an empty stomach. Should I be crying because I just killed my best friend? Should I be glad I had just killed my best friend and stopped him from being someone's puppet? Laugh, cry, rage, sob...too many emotions. I just tried to puke, holding my bloody mask in one hand. The hum of the compressor was the only sound other than my heaving.

After a few seconds, the heaving gave way to heavy breathing as I took several deep breaths. I wanted to grieve. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to do SOMETHING. I couldn't, though. I couldn't mourn for my best friend. Not yet. Aleksei's death had only been the first part of my plan. The second part sat directly below me, chanting, controlling the zombie hordes outside of the museum. I had to deal with him. I wasn't going to leave the job half done. I squeezed the blood out of my mask as best I could, but it wasn't coming out. It still dripped as I wrung out the fabric. And there was no way I was going to let a zombie's blood near my mouth. Fine. I wasn't a big fan of my face anyway. I jammed my mask into my belt before standing up. My gloves were recharging as I headed towards the stairs leading down to the rotunda. Mordo, the Shocker's coming for you, and if I can, I'm dragging Hell behind me.

The green light still shone from the Hall of North American Mammals as I entered the lobby. At this point, any thought of subtlety was long gone. I strode across the tile floor, my feet crunching the debris of broken exhibits under them. I strode right up to the entryway. In front of me, still in the lotus position, Baron Mordo smiled at me, the thick pages of the Darkhold on his lap and the green portal still hovering above him. "So you figured out that Aleksei was only a puppet. I don't know why you're so mad. I was only using him like you had used him for so many years..."

Both hands, another level ten. In the past hour, I had thrown caution and finesse out the window for the most part. I was angry. I was furious. And the only cure for that rage was destruction. The energy shot towards the smirking sorcerer...

...and washed over a green dome of energy. It sprang from nowhere, covering the sorcerer completely in a half-sphere that now sat square on the floor. Damn it...could I have ONE moment where my gloves weren't drained dry or completely and utterly freakin' useless?

"Oh, you didn't think I'd have protection in place, Herman? What a fool you are. You've wasted so much time, risked your life, and for what? You may be a safecracker, Herman, and a damn fine one if rumors are true. But magic trumps technology. This is one layer of security not even the vaunted Shocker can crack."

"Hell, Mordo, who says I have to crack it?" I pointed my fingers at the floor just beyond the base of his sphere. Only a level six this time, enough to crack the floor. The stone buckled as I sustained the blast, the stone falling away into the vast basement of the Museum of Natural History...

...and only the stone outside of the sphere. Inside the sphere, the floor remained in place, hovering with mystical assistance. The magic half-sphere was actually a bubble, extending down into the basement, half of it floating in space without any means of support.

"As I said, Herman, not even you can crack this. The magic I'm using," his voice said smugly, "is beyond your comprehension, ancient even while this world was young. None of your technical tricks and mechanic wonders will unravel this magic."

"Let me guess," I said, the very words he used earlier coming back into my head. "Empires I've never heard of, and heroes I couldn't possibly imagine. It would take something older than recorded time to burst your bubble."

Mordo's smile took on a hint of genuine affection. "Well done, Herman. If only you had turned that intelligence to magic. You could have been an interesting apprentice."

"Oh...just you wait." I left the room, leaving him with a confused grin. It took me a few moments to find what I was looking for, just the right size for me to carry. It was dense, and I had to take a few moments to steady it in my grip. Part of it was tucked under my arm, with my other hand holding the tip steady out in front of me. I had no idea if this would work. But hell, there wasn't any reason why it SHOULDN'T.

I trotted inside the door, returning Mordo's smirk as his grin turned into a confused gaze, and then into shocked recognition. "So, Mordo, tell me," I called out as I picked up speed, "is sixty-three million years old ancient enough for you!"

Using momentum, I hurled my weapon forward in a sort of underhanded javelin throw. The tip of the Barosaurus fossil pierced the bubble with ease. Before Mordo could whip up a magic spell or just get out of the way, the piece of rib jabbed into his chest. I stopped short of the hole in the floor as Mordo dropped to the floor, the Darkhold falling from his lap. The green dome surrounding him disappeared, fading into oblivion, as he feebly clutched and swatted at the fossil sticking out of his chest. Blood dripped from his mouth as he tried to get his hands around the rib to pull it free. But I did that for him, stepping onto his little piece of floor and taking the makeshift javelin in both hands, putting my foot on his chest before ripping it free. I held the fossil over him, blood dripping from the tip, waiting for the hole in his torso to start to knit up. It did, the edges of his skin beginning to creep back over the wound, before I leaned forward. I fired a level four from my gauntlets, assisting me to drive the fossil into the skull of Baron Mordo. The floor under his head cracked as the tip was pushed into the floor, passing through his forehead and brain in the process with a sickening squish. I stepped back, watching as his limbs twitched, his head pinned to the ground by the ancient bone. His skin tried to grow back over the massive head wound, but the sheer mess of the offending weapon made it in impossible. Above me, the green portal still swirled, even as its creator was helpless on the floor. But that was an afterthought for the moment. At my feet was the very thing I had gone through hell for the past hour.

The dark tome sat heavily on the floor, closed. The carving on the Darkhold's cover...it'd make the Marquis de Sade go scrambling for his safeword. I bent down and grabbed the book with utmost care. It weighed a lot more than I would have thought, and I struggled to pick it up. It was unbalanced in my hands, and I struggled to keep my footing at I stared down at it. "There you are," I muttered to the prize of the evening. "I got you. So now what the hell do I do with you?"

To this day, I'll swear what happened next was the Darkhold's doing. I could feel the cut on my forehead pulse for a moment, a drop of blood oozing from the wound. It hung on my brow for a brief second, wet and sticky, before slowly falling from my skin. The droplet fell in front of my eyes, a single brief moment of red, coming to a rest as it splashed over the cover of the Darkhold.

_...call her back..._

The whisper came from somewhere in front of me. My eyes immediately snapped forward, scanning the Hall for whoever had talked.

_...call her back..._

"Who's there," I asked hesitantly. "I ain't in the mood for games, not after the night I had."

_...you can call her back..._

The whisper wasn't from anywhere in the room. It was inside my head. A calm, soothing voice, reaching out to ease my concerns.

_...you can call her back to you...use the blood..._

I blinked for a second. The blood? What was this...whisper...whispering about?

_...you can call them back to you...use the blood...use your blood...set them free..._

"Blood? What blood? And who the hell am I talking to?"

_...a million million voices, Herman Schultz...at your command...use your blood...set her free..._

Understanding dawned on me. I looked down at the obscene cover of the Darkhold. Set against the cracked leather, the drop of my blood was vibrant, almost pulsing with energy. I sounded like such an idiot as I stammered in confusion. "You...you want MY blood?"

_...use your blood...bring Carol back..._

"Carol? Who the hell is...Carol? Ms. Marvel? Do you mean her?"

_...the portal...your blood...just one drop will call her back..._

"Ok, wait," I said out loud. "You're asking me to bleed on you? You're a book of evil sorcery! Even I know that's a bad idea!" And I was going nuts, talking to a damn book!

_...in your hands now...you've done good, Herman...use me for good...she will never return without your blood...your blood...your blood..._

"Damn it. Alright. But I swear, the second you turn into Audrey II, I will rip you apart and use you for toilet paper!" I took a deep breath, in way over my head right now. I had seen enough movies and dealt with the fringes of the magic community to know that messing around with a book of evil magic was a very bad idea. But Ms. Marvel had saved my life earlier tonight. I owed that to her. Besides, Doctor Strange himself had said the Darkhold was the key to defeating Dormammu...

Decision made, I swiped a finger across my forehead. The blood reached from the tip down to the second knuckle as I lowered it to the Darkhold. Carefully, I smeared the blood on the cover, a long red line on the faded leather. "Ok. My blood. Work your voodoo. Bring Ms. Marvel back home."

_...your command is mine to obey..._

In my hands, the Darkhold jumped. The cover fell open, revealing a page filled with words written in a language that burned my eyes. Before I could fully comprehend what I was seeing, the pages turned, flipping past rapidly. I held the book in both hands, one hand on the front and back covers, as the Darkhold turned its own pages. It came to a rest in a few seconds. Half of the page it had chosen was filled with a language I recognized as Latin. The other half was taken up by a drawing of a swirling circle. As I recognized the drawing as a representation of the portal above my head, piercing red light shot from the page. I would have shielded my eyes from the harsh glare, but my hands refused to move from the book, shackled in place by some unseen force. The portal above me turned the same color red as the light shining from the Darkhold, magical energy pouring from the book into the portal. All I could do was stand, spellbound if you'll ignore the pun. After a few seconds, the light slowed down, and began to shine in reverse. Now, the energy came from the portal, shining down onto the Darkhold.

_...she comes...be ready..._

"How?" The light grew brighter in answer to my question. The magic binding my hands in place squeezed them tightly, causing me to gasp in pain. The red portal bulged slightly, like an apple being dropped into a piece of tight Saran Wrap. And then came Ms. Marvel. The blonde dropped from the portal, hovering above the ground as she unconsciously used her powers of flight. "Where...Herman? Herman, is that you?"

As soon as she was through, the red light snapped off. The portal above our heads closed instantly, disappearing from this plane of reality without any fuss. My hands slammed the Darkhold shut, though I couldn't tell you if it was of its accord or mine. The Hall was lit only by the dim emergency lighting of the museum, leaving the two of us in shadow.

"Ms. Marvel...I am so damn glad to see you," I told her as she landed gracefully on her feet. "Are you ok?"

"The feeling is mutual," she replied. "I'm fine...whoa." Her eyes had locked onto the impaled body of Baron Mordo, twitching on the ground at her feet. "What the hell happened here?"

"Mordo bet me I couldn't break through his magical security system. He lost." I should have said that with a bit of gusto, but it just sounded so hackneyed when I said it. "I got it, though." Clutching the book in both hands, I held the Darkhold up. "This is it. This is what Strange said we needed to stop the zombies and defeat Dormammu."

"You got it..." she said in disbelief. Then her face lit up as she realized my success. "You got it! Herman, that's amazing!" Her smile almost lifted my spirits, but it soon fell away as she realized what my victory probably meant. "Aleksei," she said quietly.

I nodded. "Yeah. Mordo was controlling him like a puppet, sort of like when we fought the Hulk," I replied in a neutral tone.

"Wow...Herman. I'm sorry."

I just shrugged. "He was dead. Now he's resting in peace. I'll cope with my issues later." A few seconds passed before my eyes met hers. "Thanks, though."

After a nod, she motioned to the Darkhold in my hands. "Alright. So, we got the book. Now what the hell do we do with it?"

"I have no clue," I answered honestly. "I'm an engineer, not a magician. I don't even know how the hell I pulled you back from wherever the hell you had ended up."

She cocked her head in confusion, leading me to explain what happened. "I grabbed the book, and...it told me that you could be brought back. It knew you...it called you Carol." Her eyes narrowed a bit as I continued. "It...it said all I had to do...ah, Christ. I gave it some of my blood, and it brought you back."

"You...you BLED on it? Herman," Ms. Marvel said with alarm in her voice, "from everything we've heard, that's a book of dark magic. It's practically alive! And you GAVE it your own blood?"

"Hey, I had to get you back! And...I don't know a thing about magic. I had to give the damn thing a jumpstart!"

"Well...that just doesn't strike me as a wise thing to have done, Herman."

"Welcome to my life," I groused. "Look, you're back, right? Somehow, I used the book to bring you back. Maybe I can figure out what Baron Mordo and the Grim Reaper were going to do with this thing and reverse it." I looked up at her, trying to talk out the theory going through my head. "The plague didn't start with this book, right? It started with Reaper getting his hands on something from another dimension and sacrificing the Hood to start the spread. They wanted this book because Mordo said it'd give them greater control over the zombies. It's...it's like you said earlier. If this thing can control the living dead, maybe it can stop them somehow."

_...can help...can stop the dead from rising..._

I looked at her. "Don't think I'm nuts, but did you hear that whisper?"

"What whisper?"

"Damn. The book's talking to me." She raised an eyebrow in bemusement. "No, seriously, it's whispering to me."

_...can stop the dead from rising..._

"And it's telling me it can stop the dead from rising."

After a second, Ms. Marvel sighed. "I'm sorry, Herman. I'm just...the fate of the world is in the hands of a criminal engineer and a book of evil magic. I've taken on aliens, fought demons from another world, lost my powers, gained my powers back...and this is easily the situation that's boggling my mind the most." She studied me for a second. "But...you haven't been wrong yet. Foolish and stubborn, but not wrong. During this crisis, you've been at the center of everything. That first night when you saved those civilian outside that 7-11 and became a YouTube sensation. Getting all those villains to work together with us heroes instead of taking advantage of the situation. Stopping the Hulk. Getting the attention of Norman Osborn, the Grim Reaper, and Dormammu. And now, in your hands, the one thing that's going to end this whole mess and put things back to normal." A smile formed on her face, stretching from ear to ear after a few seconds. "Herman Schultz. The center of the universe."

"Yeah..." I looked down at the book in my hands, its promise of ending the plague of the living dead looping in my head, a faint whisper as I mulled over the current situation and Ms. Marvel's words. "Fred was right. Maybe this is what I wanted, deep down inside. But...this is too damn much. I could barely beat Spider-Man. I hid from the Punisher and the Scourge of the Underworld. Anytime I stuck my head up, I got it kicked in. Hell, I haven't had a date in three years. And now...I'm supposed to save the world?" I glanced up at the blonde Avenger. "I wish my self-esteem would make up its mind. I think I can, I know I can't, I think I can, I know I can't"

She sighed. "Herman, you're thinking way too much. Your actions over this past week...your actions tonight...you can do this. Trust me. Some of the people on the Avengers have way more issues than you do." I scoffed at her statement, I couldn't help it. "What? We're not gods, Herman. We're just ordinary people given extraordinary gifts who happen to end up at the right place at the right time to do good. And if that's not the story of the Shocker over the past week, then I don't know what is. Suck it up...you're a good guy now, and when push comes to shove, the good guys don't lose." Ms. Marvel pointed a finger at me, shaking it for emphasis. We...do...not...lose. Herman, the call is from heroism. Will you accept the charges?"

"Yeah...it figures heroism would call me collect..." My head snapped up. "Wait. Was that a 'Simpsons' quote? You just quoted 'the Simpsons' at me?"

"It's appropriate. And you haven't answered my question." Toned arms crossed across her firm chest. "It's in your hands, Herman. Your call."

You've read this far into the story. What do you think my decision was?

"Alright, Ms. Marvel," I said, tucking the Darkhold under my arm. "Let's end this."


	36. Black Magic and Red Lightning

"Whoa." West Drive was lit up with streaks of tracer fire and bolts of blue energy. To the north, on the shores of the Reservoir, yellow repulsor beams split the sky in front of the portal's red glare. And to the south, the sounds of gunfire drifted to our ears, as Osborn's men swept that side of the park, led by the Trapster and Deadpool. "It's like something out of a movie," I said softly, in awe of the canvas of violence and mayhem spread out before me.

"Yeah, 'Avatar' meets 'Night of the Living Dead.'" Ms. Marvel walked over to the double doors leading up to where we stood, a fire axe in her hand. As I stared at the firepower being put up in defense, I heard her say "actually, replace 'Avatar' with 'Apocalypse Now.'" She jammed the axe into the handles of the door. With ease, the long metal handle of the fire axe was twisted into a knot, tying the two handles together. Ms. Marvel clapped her hands together as she stepped back. "Alright. Any zombie that manages to shamble up here isn't going to be able to break through that." She walked back towards where I was standing, the Darkhold still under my arm as I watched the light show. "And if a horde does show up, it'll give us plenty of warning."

Ms. Marvel stood next to me for a moment. In silence, we watched the zombie horde creep towards the barricades. The sheer number of dead bodies scattered all over the Great Lawn was a major impediment to the undead, and they still marched on, crawling and stumbling over the pile of their brethren. "Herman...you're up right this, right?"

"I don't know." I held the ancient tome in front of me. My blood still glistened wetly in the moonlight on its cover. "But what choice do we have? You heard Iron Man when you finally got through to him. Doctor Strange is still missing, no one's seen Thor or Electro since they took their swim in the reservoir, everyone else is still fighting Reaper and his crew, and the last thing we need is to bring the Darkhold to the portal and let the Grim Reaper have a shot as getting this thing back. The only real mystical asset we have is Ares, and there's no way in hell I'm taking the chance of Norman Osborn realizing what we've got. He'd rip it from our hands and probably make Dormammu a counter-offer." I sighed, a bit of resignation and a bit of worry mixed together. "The Darkhold talked to me. I told it to bring you back, and it listened. If Doctor Strange shows up, I will gladly shove this thing in his hands and take my place on the firing line. Until then...well, I'm gonna see if I can figure out what makes this thing tick."

"Don't take it too lightly," Ms. Marvel cautioned. "You might end up way over your head."

"Too freakin' late."

Ms. Marvel and I stood on the roof of Belvedere Castle. Built on Vista Rock, one of the highest points in Central Park, the elevated structure gave us a clear view of the madness that had descended upon the city. And it was also one of the few places that the living dead weren't threatening, which is why we had chosen this location to try to crack the Darkhold, as opposed to staying in the Museum of Natural History, which had been surrounded by zombies. The large majority of them still streamed, like a wave of suicidal soldiers, to the SHIELD barricades, dying in droves in the face of such firepower. But small packs continued to break off, stumbling towards the sound of gunfire coming from the south end of the park, the refugees and their defenders holding their own private war. And a few, in singles or in pairs, wandered their own path, the tell-tale lure of gunfire failing to draw their interest.

"They're not...as organized as they were," I observed. The straps of the compressor bit into my shoulder. "Before," I said, readjusting the weight of the compressor, "damn near every zombie was going for the barricade, and the rest were going after the refugees who split from the pack. Now...they're spreading out. Hell, look at that bunch." I pointed towards the water's edge, where a group of ghouls were splashing in the shallow water. "What are they doing? Going for a swim?"

"They're coming for us, Herman. They know we're up here." Yeah, as I looked closer, the mob was making their way in our direction. "Don't worry," Ms. Marvel said, "they can't get up here. And if they get close, I'll pick them off." She turned to face me, a look of concern etched on her face. "Be careful, and tread lightly. A guy like Doctor Strange is wary of the power this book has. It might swallow your soul or something."

"Thanks for the thought." I set the book on the edge of the parapet, resting it flat on the stone surface. "Just watch my back. The last thing I need is someone jumping me from behind while I'm trying to figure out the magical equivalent of one plus one."

Ms. Marvel rubbed her hands together. "Don't worry." Cracking her knuckles, it sounded like the distant sound of thunder. "No zombie's going to take a bite out of you, I promise."

"Thanks, Ms. Marvel," I said as I reached out for the obscene cover of the Darkhold.

"Carol."

My hand paused, hovering over the book. "Huh?"

"You can call me Carol, Herman." I turned to look at her, one of my eyebrows raised in disbelief. She shrugged her shoulders at the expression on my face. "Mordo called me by my first name, and apparently that book did as well according to what you told me. So...by this point, I think you and I are on a first-name basis, Herman."

"Huh," the only response I really could make. So all it took was the end of the world and fighting side by side to get her attention. I jotted that down for future reference. "Tell you what. As long as you're in the costume, you're Ms. Marvel. If we ever sit down for a cup of coffee, you're Carol. Deal?"

A small grin answered my question before her words did. "Deal." She nodded to the Darkhold. "Go ahead and work your magic, Herman. I got you covered."

I really could have used a drink of water as I cracked open the book. It fell open to a random page, the paper crinkled and yellowed from the ravages of time. The drawing on the page was still legible, the words only a warm sensation on my eyes as opposed to the sharp heat back in the museum. "Alright," I said quietly, "let's you and I have a talk."

_...await your questions..._

The whisper...I would have expected something that came out of the mouth of the Vulture, a high, raspy, scratchy voice that grated on my ears. Instead, the Darkhold's voice was comforting, spoken calmly in a time of great danger and peril. That put me on edge. I had dealt with enough lowlifes and criminals to know that when people got polite and soothing, it was because the knife was going in your back the second your guard went down.

_...do not fear...are yours now..._

...how the hell? "Damn it, don't read my mind."

The whisper gave a low chuckle in response, the sound of an audience in a quiet room trying to hold back their laughter. _...do not have to...your body speaks..._

"Cut the psychiatry," I said, holding myself a little more upright. "We're running out of time. You said back in the Museum you could stop the dead from rising. Were you bs'ing me, or telling the truth?"

_...truth...speak the truth..._

"Alright. How?"

_...emptiness..._

"...ok, that really doesn't help me out here."

_...emptiness..._

"Same thing, still not helping," I sighed. "Come on, can't you be a little less cryptic and a little more direct?"

_...blood..._

Oh, just peachy.

"Man...Darkhold, I said it earlier, I'm not going to keep giving you my blood."

_...blood...communicate...strengthen our bond...belong to you now...blood_

"I get it. So if I give you more blood, you'll stop talking like a fortune teller and start making sense?"

_...strengthen our bond...

"Damn it. I'm going to regret this." But I didn't have a choice, did I? The cut on my forehead had dried itself shut over the past few minutes. I had to dig a bit with my finger, sawing the rough fabric across the wound, wincing as my armor touched the raw flesh underneath. The disapproving stare of Ms. Marvel...Carol...burned on the back of my neck as the blood began to flow again, one drop running down my face like I had cut myself shaving. My teeth ground together as I smeared blood all over my fingers. This was NOT the best idea I ever had. But I had to communicate with this thing somehow. And it wasn't like I was opening a vein and bleeding all over it.

A content sigh breezed through my mind as I pressed my bloody fingers onto the page. The dark liquid was a stark contrast to the yellowed paper. It pooled on the parchment, settling on top of it instead of sinking in and staining the page.

_...our bond strengthens, Herman, through your blood..._

It was still a quiet voice, but the words were much clearer in my head, like they had sliced through the mental background noise.

"Ok, I can hear you now," I acknowledged, pulling my fingers back. "You said blackness and emptiness. What does that have to do with these things?"

_...they are empty...it fills every part of their being...it is what drives them...the craving to fill that void with what they lack..._

"Life," I found myself saying. "They lack life."

_...they lack life...they lack death...they lack anything that makes them more than pure instinct...they seek to fill the most basic need any being in this universe holds..._

Flashes of my high school psychology class flared from my memories. A crusty old teacher with blue hair pointing at a triangle on the blackboard. "Food."

_...you are a smart one, Herman...the hungry dead can't fulfill their most basic need...driven to fill their bellies in vain..._

That cold chill went through my body again. Now I knew why they wanted warm flesh, and why every moan that a zombie made held that sense of need, that soul scraping sound of unfulfilled desires. A hole that they couldn't full, the one thing every human being needed to function...and these parodies of life couldn't fill that hole no matter how much flesh they stuff inside their bodies.

_...can show you..._

The quiet voice brought me back from my thoughts. "Show me? Show me what?"

_...we can show you the emptiness...feel what they feel...see what they see..._

"Uh...no way. I don't want to become one of those things. Not on your damn life."

_...no...see the world through their eyes...the emptiness, Herman...know all about the emptiness...

"Damn it," I growled towards the tome, "we don't have that kind of time."

_...patience, Herman...there is always time enough to do what's necessary...see the world...see the emptiness..._

My fingers twitched. I watched as my bloodstained glove reached out towards the Darkhold of...well, not their own accord, but I damn sure well wasn't about to take the book up on its offer. "I said we don't have time." I tried to pull my hand back, but the same sharp, pressing pain that had kept my hands on the Darkhold back in the museum snapped around my wrist, pulling my hand forward.

_...see the emptiness..._

I tried to resist the force, but with a sudden surge, my hand slammed down on the open book. Tendrils of black energy wrapped around my hand, reaching up from the ink scribbled across the page. My hand went cold, icy veins spreading quickly up my arm.

_...see the emptiness..._

_...see..._

Hunger.

Feet wet. Hunger, a roaring fire in my belly.

Flashes of light. Hunger, a ball of ice rolling about in my stomach.

Movement in front. Hunger, a javelin piercing my insides.

Forward, towards the movement. Hunger, tearing my intestines into pieces.

I could see Belvedere Castle in the distance. I must have...

Hunger. There...

...been down on the shore of Turtle Pond. In front of...

Hunger. Up in the castle...

...me was the stone pile myself and Ms. Marvel...

Hunger. Flesh. Skin. Bone.

...were standing on top of.

Hunger. Muscle. Blood. Sinew. The feeling of hunger crashed over me like a tsunami. _What the hell...what did you do?_

_...need to see what they see...feel what they feel..._

_No, I don't! They're dead, they're killing this planet, and all I need to see is each one of them put back in the ground where they belong! And you said you could help me do it!_

_...you're an engineer...your view is narrow minded...see all facets...all possibilities..._

There wasn't anything to see. The zombie I was riding along with stumbled along the shore of Turtle Pond, at the foot of Belvedere Castle. It was surrounded by a few of its brethren, all moving in the direction of the castle.

That's all I could tell you about what the zombie was doing. Because the hunger was just too much. From the instant the Darkhold shoved me into this zombie's mind, this hollow pit covered every fiber of my being. Every thought...I don't know if you can call it a thought...no, every instinct this zombie had revolved around its hunger, the urge to feed driving it onward.

_Get me out of here!_

_...imagine it, Herman...driven for eternity by one urge..._

_I don't need to, I don't WANT to! Pull me back, damn it!_

It overwhelmed me. I felt it, the pure NEED to sink my teeth into flesh. Imagine craving a cigarette when it's below zero and there's a foot of snow on the ground. Imagine lying in a hospital bed, your body ripped open by an explosion, begging for morphine to dull the pain. Imagine seeing that girl or guy across a crowded bar, the one that causes your heart to ache. Add those sensations together, those senses of longing and want. A cokehead in withdrawal, begging for one line. A coffee addict with a New Year's resolution to quit caffeine cold turkey. Throw them in there. Multiply that total by a factor of one hundred. And you haven't even BEGUN to comprehend the hole that the hunger was tearing at the zombie. There was nothing else. No memories. No personality. No ticks, no quirks. There was nothing inside this zombie to differentiate it from any other corpse, save its mobility.

_...you see now, Herman...nothing...every one...nothing..._

My vision shifted instantly. The Brooklyn Bridge burned at the top of the off-ramp as I wandered towards a Marine reloading his assault rifle, the taste of warm blood copper in my mouth.

_...nothing..._

Shift. The sign on the flat grass read "WELCOME TO IOWA" as I stood, motionless, in a corn field, the only sound the whisper of rustling stalks. Hunger.

_...nothing..._

Shift. I slapped my hand against the fortified door of a movie star's mansion in Los Angeles, moaning to draw the attention of anyone who could help me break through and reach the woman cowering behind it.

_...nothing..._

Shift. My teeth tore into the leg of the handcuffed convict. The screams from my meal did nothing to deter me as I ripped a chunk of his calf away, wet blood quenching the fire.

_...nothing..._

Shibuya Crossing was dark, the screens towering over Tokyo's equivalent to Times Square. In the far distance, a dim light shined from the top of a skyscraper, blinking in a coded pattern. It would take me days to reach it, the hunger ripping at my insides with each step.

_...nothing..._

Bullets tore into my body, slapping at my decaying skin as the bullets from the Russian soldiers were blown off-course due to the howling Siberian wind. Zombies felt into the deep snowdrifts on either side of me, the blood from their head wounds freezing upon contact with the frigid air. I drove myself forward through the howling blizzard towards the source of the gunfire, heedless of the projectiles ripping me apart.

_...nothing..._

_Stop it!_

_...nothing..._

_Stop it!_

_...nothing..._

"STOP IT!"

I pulled away from the Darkhold, the metal of my gauntlets cold against my skin as I pressed my hands against the side of my head. "Stop it! Just stop it!"

"Herman! HERMAN!" Another pair of hands grabbed at my wrists, holding me in place. The blue eyes of Ms. Marvel, wide with alarm, stared at me as she stopped me from staggering across the roof. "Herman, what's wrong! Calm down!"

Deep breaths. I took several, my breath clouding the air between me and the Avenger. "Ok...I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine."

"If you have to keep chanting you're fine, Herman, you're not." She slowly let go of my hands, turning to glance at the book of magic sitting on the parapet. "What the hell happened?"

"That damn thing put me in the mind of a zombie." My hands were on my hips now, and I sucked air like I had just finished running from the cops even though it was my mind, not my body, that had just been worked over. "Several of them, in fact. They're hungry. They're so damn hungry...they're like a heroin addict going through withdrawal, but...it'll never end. They're going to starve forever."

"Right. That's it, Herman. You're not playing around with that book anymore. We'll guard it and keep the Grim Reaper or Osborn from getting their hands on it, but you're not going back near that thing," she said in a firm tome.

_...you will...you want to stop the hungry dead...if you don't, no one will..._

"If I don't stop them," I told Ms. Marvel, "no one's going to." The words just came into my mouth, flowing automatically without thought. "We don't have enough firepower to overcome every single zombie. Sooner or later, someone's running out of ammo, that line will get overrun, and it's game over for the Big Apple."

_...you know us...we know you...bound together..._

"I'm fine. It was just overwhelming to get jammed into the head of an undead eating machine." I turned back towards the book. "I know what I'm doing..."

"Like hell you do. Herman..."

"I got this."

A hand on my shoulder. But not of comfort. She pinned me in place as her fingers dug into my skin, causing me to wince in pain. "Herman," Ms. Marvel said from behind me. "No. That book's evil. It's luring you in. It'll tell you lies and toy with you because you don't know a damn thing about magic."

"What about what you said back in the museum? How you had faith that I could pull this off?"

"I might have been wrong. Hell, I probably was wrong. It's not you, Herman, it's that damn book. You're up to your neck in quicksand when it comes to that thing..."

"Yeah...but I got one thing going for me." I tried to turn, but she kept her grip tight. "I'm clever. Hell, you know what? I'm damn brilliant. I built these gloves out of nothing, and I got a better track record against Spider-Man than any other villain. I've committed more crimes than the police ever found out about. I survived this past week with my wits and some damn good luck. The way I'm seeing it, I'm one of the smartest people on the damn planet, Ms. Marvel, and if there's a way to crack that book and stop the living dead, I'm going to find it."

"That's hubris, Herman."

I pointed out towards the battle raging below us. "That's reality, Carol. And we don't have the luxury of denying it anymore. I can pull this off. I know I can."

After a few seconds, she pulled her hand back. "If that thing possesses you, Herman, I will take you out," a cold voice said. "I won't trade one Grim Reaper for another. If I even think you're turning to the dark side..."

She didn't need to finish the sentence.

I laid my hands back on the pages of the book.

_...you know what they are now..._

_So what did Baron Mordo want with you? What makes you so damn important? There was zombies around before he and Eric Williams got their hands on you._

_...it ties into how the zombies came about, Herman...listen carefully...Black Talon discovered another dimension that had been infected by the same plague that now lays waste to this one...he approached Dormammu's servant, who you know as the Hood, with this information...when the Hood turned him away, Dormammu disowned his servant..he chose the Grim Reaper as his new servant on this Earth...he taught the Grim Reaper the proper rituals and spells to bring the plague through space and time...the Hood was the conduit...his ritual sacrifice spilled the necessary blood needed to invest the plague into his body..._

_Ok. Let me make sure I got this. Black Talon somehow finds out that there's another dimension infected with zombies, and when Dormammu found out about it, he sacrificed the Hood and put the Grim Reaper in his place in order to bring whatever caused that plague to our dimension?_

_...accurate enough..._

_So...it all started with the Hood? Ok, so if we find the Hood and shoot him in the head, does that reverse the plague somehow?_

_...the Hood was destroyed by the Wrecker...he was only the initial conduit...his sacrifice allowed the plague to spread around the world instantly...the dead began to rise in all places..._

_Yeah, I saw it on TV. So, why? What did Dormammu have to gain from all of this?_

_...Doctor Strange banished him from this physical plane...the death of human beings releases life energy...the presence of the living dead generates death energy...the two of them together can provide a catalyst for Dormammu to force his way back to this plane..._

_And? What will be do once he gets here?_

_...Dormammu is to dimensions what Galactus is to planets...the Grim Reaper was to spread chaos and fear to add flavor to the energy that Dormammu would devour from this planet..._

_So he's going to eat everything. Great. So where do you fit into the equation? Why did Williams need to get his hands on you?_

_...Dormammu can give his minions power to control the living dead...you experienced it first hand when you fought the being you knew as the Hulk...you experienced it first hand when you fought the being you knew as Aleksei..._

_Get to the point_

_...your anger is justified...their control over the living dead is limited...the more they inhabit, the less control they possess...would have acted as a means to enhance their control...power increasing exponentially...to drive the horde with a purpose...not simply to feed...but to feed from a certain herd...to push towards a location instead of wandering aimlessly..._

_You're a guidance system._

_...much more, Herman...direction...control...purpose...all these things...see for yourself..._

_No, no! Don't you..._

I braced myself for the hunger to slam into my stomach like a wrecking ball.

_...hunger doesn't control...you control...we control..._

_Jesus Christ!_

On either side of me, zombies pawed at the base of Vista Rock. I stepped backwards, trying to quickly extract myself before they realized I was there and decided I'd make a tasty snack...

I felt stiff, like I had just gotten out of bed in the morning. My head lolled to one side as I took a halting step backwards, planting my foot on the ground. The world itself was a bit blurry, but I could easily make out everything around me through a red haze. The sounds of gunfire behind me...they weren't loud, but they resonated in my ears, more distinct than the natural sound of water lapping on shore.

_...you are one of them now, Herman...try to move..._

My arm came up slowly. I could see the two remaining fingers and the large chunk of flesh missing from my wrist. No pain, just a sense of missing digits.

_Whoa._

_...this is but a taste, Herman..._

I don't know how to describe it. It...it was picture-in-picture, but my vision didn't get divided. Another scene was overlaid on top of the view I had, but I could easily make them both out without confusion. This time, the zombie was making its way towards the front door to Belvedere Castle, a few of her fellow ghouls in her wake.

_...control..._

I raised my other arm. Two arms lifted into the air as the second zombie came to a halt and both of them lifted their arms. It felt...natural. I wasn't splitting my attention between security monitors...it was just something easy, like driving stick shift for two cars at the same time. Which is impossible. But I was doing it.

_...control..._

Two jumped to eight, not stopping at four.

_...speak your will, Herman..._

_Ok. Um...I command you to stop._

The crowd moving towards the entrance to the Castle stopped. One fell down, his gnawed ankle snapping as I put all my weight on it, but that was just a dull thump to me even as he slammed into the rocky ground.

And eight jumped to seventeen. Everything was laid out before me. The zombies surrounding Belvedere Castle were stationary and silent, swaying gently in place. Each of them, I knew what they were doing, what they were staring at. No hunger, no thoughts, no actions. All of them, waiting for...me, to tell them what to do.

_...control...power...speak your will, Herman..._

As a test, they all raised their right arms, joining the first two. No delay, no lag, no hesitation.

_...the blood...it's in their eyes...it speaks to them...you speak to them...you learn quick, almost as quick as the being you know as the Grim Reaper and the being you know as Baron Mordo..._

_And the Grim Reaper and Baron Mordo...they could do this? What I'm doing right now?_  
_...with my assistance, Herman, controlling such empty minds...such willing puppets...can be easily done..._

I had to test it out. You have seventeen zombies at your beck and call. What the hell else could I have done?

Sixteen zombies clicked their heels together, the seventeenth following an instant later, slapping the foot on his good leg against the one on his bad leg. As a group, they slid to their left, shoulders shaking as they got back up to a standing position. And a bunny hop. And now a shuffling turn...

_...FOOL..._

Pain ripped through my head, jabbing directly at my brain, red hot knitting needles sliding deep into my lobes. I screamed in agony, trying to rip my hands away from the pages of the Darkhold, but something held me in places, unseen thorns piercing my wrists to maintain our physical connection.

_...SUCH POWER IS A GIFT...IT IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE USED IN A MOCKING MANNER..._

"Damn...it...when you get a new car...you...you have to TEST DRIVE it!"

The pain in my skull flared for a moment, before suddenly cutting off. The deep pinpricks in my wrist relaxed as I gasped for breath, my chin on my chest.

"Herman, damn it," I could hear Ms. Marvel say, "talk to me! What the hell is that book doing to you?"

"Apparently," I said between deep breaths, "the Darkhold doesn't got a sense of humor." After a second, I added, "I think the damn thing gave me a hate stroke," as I felt blood trickle out of my nose.

"I'm sorry, Herman, but you really should pull the damn plug on this..."

"I can control them." I turned to look at her. I must have been a sight, with an open cut on my forehead, blood dripping from my nose, and who knows how sunken or bloodshot my eyes were. "I was controlling them, Ms. Marvel. I was in their heads, the one down below us. They danced. I told them to dance, and they danced."

"You...made them dance?"

"How the hell else could I make sure they could do what I wanted them to do, and that it wasn't some kind of Darkhold trick?"

"Herman, it's making you dance to its tune. It's showing you what it wants to show you."

I held up a hand, palm out. "Don't you..."

"I'm not going to stop you, Herman, but just remember this," Ms. Marvel told me. "You're seeing what it wants you to see."

"I know...it's like having vertigo while being in a damn house of mirrors. The damn thing's shoving me in so many different heads, I have to make sure this one's mine." Drums beat in my head as I felt the blood pulse through my brain.

"Damn it." Ms. Marvel crossed her arms, staring at my bleeding visage. "I don't know what to think, Herman. Part of me wants to just pull you out of here and let the professionals handle this, and the other part thinks you're going to make this work. I feel so damn useless."

I put on my best smile, trying hard not to add any smirk to it. "You're my fail-safe. If things really get bad, you're the lab assistant who pulls the plug when the machine starts sparking. Trust me, you're not useless. If you think I'm over my head, I mean REALLY over my head...you know what to do. But I have this. Just...let me do my thing."

As I turned to look back down at the tome, a drop of blood fell from where it had bled from my nose. It impacted the book, and again, a delightful sigh breezed through my brain. "That's the last drop you're getting," I said out loud as I wiped the blood away with my suit's sleeve. "Ms. Marvel's right. You've been kicking my ass, and that stops, now, unless you want to get turned into toilet paper."

_...you needed to see, Herman...you needed to experience it...show, don't tell..._

_Well, it ain't an excuse for abusing me._

_...you will respect...you must respect..._

_Alright, alright, I respect you. But let's save the ass-kissing for later. So, I can control zombies and just make them stand still?_

_...yes...but more...much more...you can control them, Herman...an army of the undead...at your command..._

_...yeah. That's where it starts. You show me the apple and I take a bite, and next thing I know, you have my soul and I'm taking the Grim Reaper's place. Forget that noise. Just show me how to stop the dead from rising, like you said you could._

_...so much wasted potential, Herman...you should have been on the pedestal...you should have the accolades and the press...not Spider-Man...not Norman Osborn..._

_Right now, I don't care._

_...you do..._

_I don't!_

_...your blood lets me know you...your blood seethes...your hearts boils...you fear being forgotten..._

_A couple of days ago, that argument would have worked. Not now, pal._

_...so much more...so much potential..._

_Saving the world and being recognized as a hero by civilians and...what Thor said to me means more than anything than you could offer me. And right now, I've got a damn Avenger watching my back. Anything you can offer right is just a second-rate knockoff that fell off the back of a truck._

_...you could be king..._

_Yeah. Right now, the king's getting his ass kicked by Wonder Man, his right-hand man is pinned to the floor of the Museum of Natural History with a dinosaur bone, and I'm holding the one thing that can stop the king's grand plan. It ain't good to the king._

_...very well...you wish to stop the living dead..._

_Damn right. You said you can help me put these ghouls down and stop them from rising again._

_...the plague that animates the living dead is still present...any living human being will become one of them...can not only put the living dead to rest...but can use the portal currently under Dormammu's control to send the plague back to its dimension of origin..._

_And that'll do it? Dead will stay dead?_

_...yes..._

_Fine. Great. So let's do it._

_...it is difficult..._

_Guess it would be, huh? So, what, we need a real, professional wizard like Doctor Strange as opposed to some schmuck like me, huh?_

_...the rituals and spells are located within my pages..._

_So, you can do it yourself? Automatically?_

_...of a sort..._

_Great! Alright, so what do you need me to do?_

_...cannot cast the spell directly...need a human being to act...the word 'ignition' is the closest to a term you would understand..._

_Got it. You need me to actually start everything. Right. Um...you're not going to possess me or jump into my head, are you?_

_...not required..._

_Good. So...go ahead. Unwind the spell. Reverse the plague. Send these guys back to where they belong, six feet under._

_...it is difficult..._

_Why? You said you can do it, go ahead and do it!_

_...it is difficult..._

_Great. The catch. Always a damn catch._

_...blood..._

_Blood? Of course. How much of my blood are we talking here?_

_...your blood strengthens our bond...no more of yours is required..._

_So you need someone else's blood?_

_...the plague was brought forth by a portal opened through the sacrifice of the Hood upon the altar...only an equal sacrifice can provide the power to open a new portal..._

_So...I...I have to find a HUMAN sacrifice?_

_...yes..._

_Oh, no. Hell no. Forget that. There is NO way I'm going to slice someone open! There has to be another way!_

_...follow the logic, Herman...the death energy of human sacrifice ripped open the portal...only the death energy of human sacrifice can seal it shut..._

_No! It's not a damn option!_

_...it is not an option...it is the only choice..._

_Well forget it!_

_...blood...it is the only way...this city will become a graveyard...the Earth a tomb..._

_Damn it. No...ok, fine. Fine. Me. I'll do it. Use me._

_...you must cast the spell...your blood is what binds us...without you, the tether will be lost..._

_You suckered me in! Ms. Marvel was right! You suckered me!_

_...blood...it is the only way..._

I had been played for the sap. Ms. Marvel was right. I was so far out of my league. But follow the logic. The power source that jumpstarted all this was a human sacrifice. The way to end it? It made sense.

_...her...use her..._

_Who?_

_...the one you know as Carol Danvers..._

_Carol...Ms. Marvel? No! She's got my back! She saved my life!_

_...she is an Avenger...they are prone to sacrifice...just think of her upon the altar...her life force will instantly flow into me, fueling the ritual...she will feel no pain..._

_Forget it!_

_...Spider-Man, then...you loathe him...he has always been your better...his death will fuel your glory..._

_No! Damn it, stop tempting me!_

...Peter Petruski...he poisoned you...think of him upon the altar..._

_Absolutely not! No one else dies!_

_...Osborn...ah...his name...you have thought of killing him recently...his name is painful to your heart...Norman Osborn...you wish your vengeance upon him...use him...think of him upon the altar..._

_No! It's murder! And I won't become a murderer, even to save the world!_

_...being a hero Herman means making the hard choices...if you can't make this one, how can you even consider yourself a hero...Norman Osborn...he is evil, Herman...he killed your best friend...he tried to kill you...you don't think he has a plan...or that the vision the Grim Reaper saw did not have basis in truth...the empire of ashes and rubble will come to pass, Herman...Osborn...Osborn..._

_It would be that easy. Just think about sacrificing him, and that's it?_

_...he can feel agony during his sacrifice, should you so choose..._

_No. No, that's the easy way out. Maybe I'm all for not doing any real work, but I always did my best to make sure no one died...and I'm not going to let the end of the world change that.._

_...you have changed, Herman...the old you has passed away...do not hold on to old feelings and old ideas..._

_There's a way. There's always a way. There's always a third option._

_...blood...it's the only way..._

Who was Norman Osborn?

A former villain. A current villain. Mad man. Schemer. Murderer. The blood of Aleksei was on his hands. He tried to kill me. He was walking around in a suit of armor that looked and probably fought like Iron Man's. He had a team of psychopaths and villains and obviously had big plans for them.

And I had defied him. And more importantly, I had defied him and lived.

What was to stop him from coming after me? A week, a month, a year later, I'm sure I'd wake up to Mac Gargan breaking down my door. Or have a playing card flicked into my head by Bullseye. Or hell, Moonstone giving me death by snu-snu. In any case, even now, in the eyes of Norman Osborn, I was a dead man walking, a loose end to be tied up. Why the hell shouldn't I get him first? If I had had an open shot at the Scourge of the Underworld years ago, I would have popped him in a heartbeat. This wasn't premeditated murder. This was self-defense...

...no. That's the easy way out. The fact that Osborn crossed the line and committed murder time and time again, doing it without a second thought, and I hadn't, was the difference between me and him, maybe the only difference. He might have been living in the jet set and I was counting out dimes for a Cup'O'Noodles, but I never had another human being's blood on my hands. I scraped and bribed and planned and scouted and did everything I could to keep civilians casualties to a bare minimum, while Osborn just dropped a pumpkin bomb or two on a crowd, taking the path of least resistance...

...

...

...bingo.

_Alright. Let's do it your way._

_...you have made the right decision...just think the name..._

_No. No, I won't kill anyone. We're going to do what you suggested before. The zombies. I want them._

_...your army..._

_Damn right. You said you can make me king._

_...control...an eternal army...humanity at your beck and call..._

_I can do anything with them. I can turn them away from the civilians. I can send them at Norman Osborn._

_...yes..._

_I can send them at the Trapster._

_...yes!..._

_And I can send them at Spider-Man._

_...YES!..._

_Alright, then. Put me in control._

_...blood..._

_No. No more blood._

_...it is difficult..._

_I don't care. You've spent the past couple of thousand of millennia putting together enough spells to make a fundamentalist go 'Jesus Christ.' If you're so big and bad, if you're as powerful as you're making yourself out to be, then do what I say._

_...blood..._

_You need me. I'm the engine. I'm the ignition. Without me, you're nothing but a couple of musty pages waiting for the next Harry Potter. You want me to use you? Fine. Then do what I asked...no, what I commanded. Put me in control._

_...yes..._

My head exploded with light for a split second. And then I was looking at Belvedere Castle through seventeen sets of eyes.

_...yours to command...what is thy bidding..._

_Oh, no. Not just these. More. There's about ten thousand zombies in Central Park. Put me in control._

_...blood..._

_You heard me the first time. I gave you my blood, and that means we're bonded. That means I'm your damn boss, and you're going do what I say._

_...no! I am...we are..._

_...no, you ain't. You fight back against me and either I shut this book and let you sit until someone else comes to pick you up, which is unlikely since everyone will be dead, or you kill me and no one else is dumb enough to try to use you. I'm running this monkey farm now, and I wanna know...what the hell are you doing with my time? There's ten thousand zombies out there, and I want them._

_...powerful...sensory overload...too many at once..._

_Don't think so. Try me. Bet I prove you wrong._

_...fine...as you command...open your eyes, Herman...and embrace forever..._

Seventeen became eleven thousand, nine hundred and twenty seven...twenty five...nineteen...as the hail of gunfire at West Drive tore into the horde. Eighteen, now, as a throwing star flicked by Bullseye embedded itself deep in the brain of a ghoul. I saw nearly the whole of the Great Lawn as the zombies strode across the grass, and the large hole in the barricade where they continued to stream through, and the gray plasteel as they shuffled along the sidewalks and avenues towards the open hole. All of it. Every eye, every footstep, I felt. Every motion sensed.

_Stop._

Eleven thousand, nine hundred, and eighteen zombies stopped instantly in their tracks. With a mental snap of my fingers, they all became still, no movement, no motion, nothing. Along the streets, the quiet rustle of clothing and creaking bone was the only sound. In the park, the gunfire never let up, the soldiers and Thunderbolts either not noticing or taking full advantage of the lull.

And Iron Man decked an unmoving Nekra in the face. Her confusion, and the confusion of four other of the Grim Reaper's servants at being unable to move, were the only emotions in my head.

I had them.

I had them all. Every single zombie in Central Park was at my beck and call. I could make them dance. I could push them forward. I could pull them back. Stand still. Sit down. Stand up. Eat. Starve. Feed.

I had an army.

_...impressive...what is your command for your legions, Herman?_

I smiled.

_Simple._

I sent the command out to eleven thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-nine zombies.

_Rest in peace._

X

The anguished whisper in my head scraped across my brain before I pulled my hands away from the Darkhold.

_!!_

Ashes to ashes, they all fell down. My vision snapped back to the top of Belvedere Castle as the sound of over eleven thousand corpses hitting the street and lawn echoed softly over the entire park. The gunfire from the barricade soon slacked off a moment afterwards as the dead bodies settled in their final repose. It took a few seconds for me to recognize the sound of silence at it settled over Central Park. No gunfire. No screaming civilians. No barking orders. Just the sounds of fires burning elsewhere in the city.

With one word, I had just killed over eleven thousand ghouls.

"Top that, Ares," I said quietly.

"Herman," a stunned voice said beside me. "Was that you?"

I looked over at Ms. Marvel. Her jaw was open, her eyes wide as she stared over the carpet of twice-dead bodies that now covered a good bit of central Central Park. "Tell me you did this."

The smile on my face was small and determined, but to me, it felt a mile wide. "Hell yeah, Ms. Marvel. That was all me. And I'm not done yet." She looked at me, head held still in shock, as I jammed my hands back down onto the Darkhold's open pages.

"You and me, book. We're going to finish this."

_...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?_

_I commanded them to die. And they did. You were right. I am in total control._

_...that was your army...they were your soldiers..._

_What they were was a gathering of eleven thousand corpses. All I did was tell them do what corpses should do. It's simple. The natural state of any body is rest. That's physics. The natural state of a dead body is death. That's biology. Add them together, and that's science, and science trumps magic any day of the damn week. Corpses should be at rest, not walking around hungry, craving human flesh. Basically, to use terms YOU might understand, I told the dead to stop screwing around and go back to being dead._

_...such power...such an army...wasted..._

_Power? You ain't seen power yet. I want you to shove me into the mind of every zombie in the Tri-State Area, right now._

_...you will just kill them..._

_Damn right I will. Now, you're the magic book, I'm the temporary wizard, and I'm commanding you, pal, put me in their heads!_

Instantly, I was there. And the Darkhold took me literally. New York City...Newark...Stamford...Hartford...Albany...Buffalo...New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Zombies numbering in the hundreds of thousands, shuffling, reaching, clawing, feeding...

_Rest now. Rest in peace._

And all across those three states, the ghouls collapsed.

_...how are you doing this...you shouldn't be able to do this...you have no experience...no control..._

_I got plenty of control. Haven't you been paying attention, or have you been too busy being my bitch? The Eastern Seaboard. Now._

From the snow covered pine trees outside Bangor to the palm trees swaying in the warm breezes of a burning Miami, a multitude of images existing simultaneously in my mind.

_ Rest now. Rest in peace._

Even as they fell all across the East Coast, I was moving on. _The Midwest. Rest. Texas. Rest. The Great Lakes. Rest. The United States. Rest. North America. Rest.

It all flashed through my mind like strobe lights, brief images of the continent, white tundra, harsh desert, small towns, large ghettos, rain, wind, moonlight. Each and every ghoul, all across the fruited plain and beyond, crashed at my command, the brief sparks of anti-life that drove them all snuffed out with just a thought from me.

_...fool...you're so foolish, Herman..._

_Nah. I know what game you were playing at, Darkhold. This is easy. Just telling the dead to die? It's easy. Killing Norman Osborn would have been easy. And then who was next? Spider-Man, because he pissed me off? Or how about a guy who owed me money and never paid off? That's where you would have gotten your hooks into me, that slippery slope I've done my best to avoid my whole life. But not now. Now, I'm in control, and we're going to end this in one final stroke. Give me the whole world. Every single stinking zombie on the planet._

Paris. Cairo. Seoul. Brisbane. Cape Town. Sao Paulo. All in my head. I could see humanity wiped out, streets empty of all but the dead. I could see humans fighting on, barricades, locked doors, automatic weapons, baseball bats. The whole world in my head. It would have driven anyone else insane, to see through the eyes of nearly two billion zombies. Not me, though. I had my trick. I had my little technique, my realization of how to end the zombie plague. And it was about to work.

_...throwing it all away! Everything could be yours, Herman! Such power! I can give it to you! Do not do this..._

_Sorry. I like my world old school, where the dead stay dead. Rest now. Rest in peace._

And they all did.

Carefully, I closed the cover to the Darkhold. The pages weighed heavily against my hand, the binding pushing back against my fingers, resisting my efforts. In my mind, the book pleaded, cajoling me, offering me the entire world. Fame. Money. Women. Power. All those things that, barely a week ago, I would have given damn near anything for with hardly a thought to any of the repercussions. Tonight, my hand gave a hard shove. With a small, heavy boom, the book slammed shut. On the cover, my blood still glistened, but already the wetness was beginning to fade.

My head...I don't know how to describe it. Ever had a really good workout? You pushed yourself as far as you could, shoving yourself to the limit and then right beyond it. Your body's sore, your muscles aching, and you know, in your mind, getting out of bed that next morning's really going to blow. But still, you're alive. You feel...awesome. Incredible. Well, that's how I felt at that moment. My brain felt like it was going through caffeine withdrawal, and at some point in the next few hours, odds are I was going to slide down a wall, curl up in the fetal position, and cry as my brain finally decrypts what the hell I just did and why I should be in a coma with no hope of recovery. For the moment, though...

"It's over," I said, one hand on the stone edge of Belvedere Castle. "It's all over. Everywhere. The dead are dead again."

She had been staring out over the parapet, staring into the distance where the zombies, few minutes ago, had attacked the barricades. When I spoke, she half-turned, looking at me a bit askew. "What do you mean?"

"All over the world. No more zombies, no more ghouls, no more flesh eating. They're all resting in peace." A smile formed on my face. It seemed like a while since I had a reason to actually smile with mirth and joy, even if a huge tinge of sadness...screw it. The zombie apocalypse was over. I had earned the right to grin. "I did it," I said, pride creeping into my voice. "I made them all lie down, and they won't be getting back up."

Before the blonde Avenger could respond, the communicator on her belt beeped. She looked down at it for a second, before suddenly snapping it off her waist and holding it tightly on one hand. "It's from a SHIELD unit in Chicago," she said out loud. "It says 'the dead just laid down.' And one from a unit in Honolulu. 'Dead look dead for real.'" Her fingers tapped a few keys on the pad, her eyes staring intently at the screen. "And...SHIELD intra-web is reporting the same thing, all around the world. Havana...Istanbul...Moscow..." After a deep breath, she looked back up at me. The smile on Ms. Marvel's face was warm and full of surprise. "You...you really did it, it looks like. You pulled it off...you pulled it off!"

I couldn't help it. I gave a half-hearted shrug. "Told you I could crack that thing."

"How? How the hell...how did you do it?"

"Ok...this is going to take a bit, so bear with me." I laid it all out for her, trying to keep it simple. Not because I believe she was an idiot, but because I kept it simple myself, trying not to overcomplicate things as much as possible. "When the Darkhold let me control all those zombies, I realized three things. One, there wasn't anything inside of them except that overwhelming hunger, but the Darkhold suppressed that hunger somehow while I was in charge. No feelings, no emotions, no thoughts. Every single ghoul was nothing more than a dead battery, no charge, no positive, no negative, and no polarity. Just a mass of famine and hunger, and without that hunger, they were literally nothing. Two, there wasn't any...lag is the best word to describe it. If I thought it, if I told them to do it, it happened instantly. I was in a whole bunch of zombies at once, and if the Darkhold switched me from one to another, it happened instantly. It was then I realized...magic has no resistance." I held up my hands, gesturing as I laid it out. "Anything that carries energy has some resistance to that energy. It's why you can't send extra electricity from New York City to a grid out in Chicago, because you're going to lose some of that juice because of resistance in the power lines. Think of it like straining water through a towel. Some of that water's going to end up in the towel, and it's the same with electricity in a way. Some of it ends up in the power line. With me?"

She nodded, so I plowed on with the exposition. "Alright. Well, with whatever magic Dormammu and the Darkhold were using, there wasn't any resistance. None. One zombie, two zombies, ten zombies, a thousand zombies...none a single magical watt of power was wasted. I could sense it. Any command I could give, every single zombie reacted at that EXACT moment to the fullest extent of their ability. Now...the third thing...this one's a little weird, so bear with me and listen up. Every try to watch two TV's at once? You can't do it. In my old line of work, multiple security monitors were a blessing, because one rent-a-cop couldn't keep an eye on every single one. When the Darkhold let me ride shotgun in a bunch of zombies at once, I didn't feel like my attention was being split. It was like I was seeing everything at the exact same time, with no overlap or no overlay. There was only one way the Darkhold could pull off that trick. You see...you can't really store electricity. It always has to be moving, which is why they call it a current, right?"

I was getting into it now. "Batteries are a special case, but for the most part, you have to use electricity the second you generate it. Just keep that in mind. When the Darkhold was showing me all those zombies at once, it wasn't. It was just flipping through their brains really, really fast...like a computer monitor with a nearly infinite framerate. Whatever the Darkhold did to my brain, it let me see all these images of the world through the eyes of a whole bunch of zombies and did it by showing them to me so damn fast and doing something to let my mind pick up on each and every single image..."

Ms. Marvel snapped her fingers. "Wait. I think I got it. So the Darkhold was really showing you one image for a really short period of time, and when he moved to show you another image, it was like an electric current moving from one power pylon to another?"

"Bingo," I said, nodding with approval. "All those minds were just one big closed power grid with absolutely no resistance, and absolutely no emotion that I could feel. Emotions would have definitely been too much for my brain to handle, but...in the end, I was looking at nothing more than two billion dead Christmas lights all strung together. And it all boiled down to one very simple rule of physics. Rule #1, Newton's Law of Inertia. A body at rest must stay at rest. And that's what dead bodies are supposed to be doing."

I put new energy into the smile on my face. "So, I had access to a huge power grid, and every single thought I had would instantly reach every single zombie without any drop in power and without any strain on my brain. All I did was tell them to do what their bodies should have been doing in the first place. Rest."

"And you thought all of that up...all that science...came up with a plan off the cuff using science to deal with a book of magic."

"What can I say? I am an engineer first...theoretical sciences give me a Hadron."

After a second, she shook her head. "Wow. You've been hanging around Spider-Man too long."

"I just saved the world, Ms. Marvel. Sorry for the cockiness...but I think I'm entitled to one bad joke."

Ah, what the hell. I'd probably never get this chance again. "And," I said, putting my arms out, "I think I deserve a damn hug. I've gotten my ass kicked all week long, and I just put my brain and my sanity at risk to stop the living dead from walking the Earth. I'm cashing in my chips right now for one hug from a beautiful lady." Cheesy as hell, but screw it. I'm throwing the "I'm the God damn Shocker" card.

She put her hands on her hips. "Seriously? You just saved the entire world and you're using it to try to extort a hug from me?" Ms. Marvel sighed as she shook her head. "That feel you copped earlier wasn't accidental either, was it?"

"No, no! That one was an accident, I promise. Look...yeah, I ain't gonna lie, a hug from one of the hottest female superheroes on the planet...'nuff said. Plus, when we finally find Boomerang, it'll make him as jealous as hell." I still had my hands out, a hint of earnestness dropping into my voice. "Seriously, I had a rough week, I'm tired, I'm exhausted...and in all honesty, damn it, I need a hug right now."

Her lips pursed as she mulled over what I said. I kept my arms extended, one eyebrow raised in the "eh? eh?" manner. Before anything could happen, though...

A yellow beam of light erupted into the sky from near the red portal. "Jesus," I proclaimed as the sound of battle began from that direction. "What the hell's going on now?"

From Ms. Marvel's communicator, a metallic voice spoke. "Ms. Marvel, MACH-IV, Shocker, if any of you are out there...the zombies have all stopped moving, but the Grim Reaper..." A loud metallic shriek filled the air for a second, coming from the small device. "...still active and fighting us to a standstill. We need assistance, ASAP."

"Iron Man, Ms. Marvel. I got the Shocker here. We're on our way, ETA in under sixty seconds. Hang in there, Avenger." She snapped her communicator shut as, in the sky above us, an orange glow suddenly flared up. "That's probably MACH-IV," Ms. Marvel replied as she approached me. One firm arm took me by the waist as the orange glow became a long streak of burning air racing towards the portal. "Guess you're not done getting your ass kicked yet, Herman. Sounds like Eric Williams is making a last stand."

"Lucky me," I groused. "Well...let's get this show on the road."

"Herman...aren't you forgetting something?" Ms. Marvel nodded to the ancient book of magic sitting nearby. "We can't just leave that lying around."

I sighed wearily. "Yeah..." No whispers in my head this time as I grabbed the book. It pulled on my arms, heavy and ponderous again, as I clutched it to my chest. "Just don't drop me," I told her as we became airborne, leaving the roof of Belvedere Castle behind.

"I won't. Too bad, though." She had a hint of a smirk as the two of us turned north towards the red portal. "I think I was probably about to give you a hug too."

"What? Oh, motherfu..."

"Welcome to the party, pal." That was the amplified metallic voice of Abner Jenkins, MACH-IV, who had just come into formation alongside of us as we flew through the air. The paint job on his silver-and-black suit was scratched all to hell, and a few jagged tears and punctures were visible all along its body.

"Glad we could make it," I yelled as I waved to my friend. "Looks like the Vulture gave you the business."

"God...that bastard sure could fly. Tough as hell to get a bead on, too. Toomes gave me a run for my money before he just dropped out of the sky and crashed into the Chess and Checkers House. Apparently, zombies all over the world just decided it was finally time to give up the ghost and the Vulture went right along with them."

"If Toomes is down, that means the rest of the Reaper's bunch should have kicked it as well, right?" Ms. Marvel looked over at me as she held me to her side. "That would make sense."

"Has anything here made sense?" One of her strong arms held me close as I kept the Darkhold close to my body. It had almost fallen free a few times, probably trying to get loose and find a more willing sap than I had been. Between the book in my hands and the air compressor still hanging from my back, physical soreness was rapidly becoming a factor in my continued activity. "This all started with the Grim Reaper. I wouldn't be shocked if he's got a few more tricks up his sleeve."

We passed over confused soldiers and refugees, skimming over them towards the red portal, the cold air whipping at my exposed face. The bodies of the dead were scattered about, a few who had somehow slipped behind the barricade, but none of them were up and walking around. That was good. Lights flashed and the sound of thunderous blows could easily be heard, but it was almost like any other superhuman rumble that took place in New York City on a daily basis.

"When we get there," Ms. Marvel told us, "just beat the hell out of the Grim Reaper. Don't give him a second if you can help it."

"Roger," MACH-IV said.

"And Herman, keep an eye on that book. If the Grim Reaper gets his hands on that book...who knows what he could do with it? Probably jumpstart the zombies all over again or something."

"Hell, why don't you just..." After a second, I realized the answer to the question I had been asking. "Because if you leave me somewhere alone and unguarded, someone might try to steal the Darkhold."

"Bingo. Plus, with that portal open, we might need magic to close it. Or seal it. Or something. Right now, Herman, you're pretty much the Sorcerer Supreme," Ms. Marvel said with all seriousness, not even the hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Wait, what," MACH-IV asked. "Magic book? Sorcerer Supreme? What the hell's going on, Herman?"

"Tell you later, Abner," I said as we dropped into the combat zone. "And man, you ain't gonna believe this..."

To one side, nearest the portal, the Grim Reaper and Wonder Man were slugging it out, and I mean they were tearing into each other. I'm talking Ali/Frazier, Tito/Couture, the Thing/Ironclad. The ground around them was torn apart, Wonder Man's suit was ripped in several places, and Reaper's armor sported numerous cracks and dents. Scattered around the area were the dead bodies of the Reaper's crew of mystics. I recognized Chondu first. His eyes were no longer the color of blood. The lady in the bronze stripper armor, Nekra, stared with white, unseeing eyes at the sky above her. And the others, who's names I couldn't remember. They were unmoving, dead as doornails, as Wonder Man and the Grim Reaper fought each other among the field of corpses. "Come on," MACH-IV said, banking to his left. "Let's give Wonder Man a..."

A bolt of lightning slammed into MACH-IV. The yellow energy rolled over his power armor, crackling into the ripped gashes. Abner immediately went limp, and gravity did the rest. He plowed into the ground, ripping a gash in the manicured lawn. Dirt piled in front of him as he dug a furrow into the grass. Electricity still crackled over him as he came to a stop, his body motionless.

"ABNER!" Ms. Marvel immediately set us down, my arms still clutching the Darkhold to my chest. "Where the heck did that lightning come from?"

"Well, well, well," a buzzing voice responded. "Look who's willingly shown up for their own funeral.

We both turned in the direction of that voice. This time, it was Ms. Marvel who summed up our situation in two perfect words as she saw the devastation laid out in front of us. "Oh, crap."

Nick Fury the closest to us, unconscious, one hand still clutching at a burn wound smoldering on his shoulder. At his feet, the body of Thor, the God of Thunder, was motionless. Mjlonir lay on the ground, inches from his outstretched hand as if he had passed out trying to reach for the legendary weapon. To one side, Iron Man was lying on the ground, electricity pouring over his gold-and-red suit. In the grip of the speaker, the body of Captain America twitched, held off the ground by a hand wrapped around his neck. Three Avengers. The head of SHIELD. All laid out and helpless at the feet of a man who, based on the empirical evidence of the past few minutes, should have been laid out like the rest of the Grim Reaper's crew.

"Hey, Herman," Electro called out to me. "Nice job on destroying all the zombies! I got a reward for you...catch!" His arm reared back, and with a grunt, he hurled Captain America towards me like a Spartan throwing a javelin.

I did what anyone else would have done, and that was dive the hell out of the way. Luckily, Ms. Marvel was there to catch him, one arm reaching out and plucking the hero out of mid-air. "Are you ok?" she asked as she set Captain America back his feet, supporting him as he leaned on her frame.

"I'm fine," he gasped. His Kevlar uniform was scorched in several places, and I'd bet the burn marks on his uniform's neck would match up with Electro's grip. "You guys did it? You're the ones who put the zombies down?"

"Yeah, but I'll explain that later." I pointed towards Electro, instead. "You should be dead, Dillon. You should be dead like everyone else."

He barked out a harsh, crackling laugh. "Yeah, that's the second time tonight you said that to me. Get some new material Herman."

It was Electro. Anyone who had crossed paths or dealt with Maxwell Dillon would have recognized the voice. But, aside from the whole "throwing lightning" thing, that's where the similarities ended. What stood in front of us wasn't a man in a green-and-yellow uniform with small snaps of energy rolling over his body. No, what Electro looked like now was a lightning bolt given human form. His face, his arms, his chest, his legs, each part of his body was a storm of electricity. No green to be seen anywhere, but plenty of yellow bolts. His hair was jagged cornrows, and instead of the red orbs where his eyes should have been were tiny slits that gave off the impression of sockets, along with facsimiles of his nose and mouth, all formed out of the yellow lightning that boiled over him.

"Check it out, Herman! Everyone else is dead...but I ain't!" His hand thrust forward, and a bolt of lightning shot towards Ms. Marvel, who barely pulled Captain America out of the way as she turned to the side to avoid the blast. "All those suckers dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, but who's still standing? I AM!"

"Not for long." I threw my hand out, firing off a level eight at him. A few days ago, throwing a level four blast would have something to write home about, some kind of dire situation. Now, I was doing it as an opening strike, casually aiming a concrete-cracking burst of air in Electro's direction.

"Oh no you don't!" His hand whipped to the side, and my attack dissipated half-way to him, the blue particles fading away in mid-air. "You got damn lucky the first time we fought, Herman. The second time, you had Thor to cover your ass. This time, there isn't anyone who can help you!"

The first bolt was a weak one, Electro sacrificing power for speed. It came at me so fast, I couldn't dodge out of the way. It caught me in the face, locking my body with convulsions. I shook in place, my muscles frozen, as a snarling Electro wound up his second blast, this one a lot more powerful. Both hands shot towards me, a jagged bolt of lightning streaking through the air, its tines aimed right at my heart...

The red-and-white shield intercepted the attack. It whipped in front of me, absorbing the energy of Electro's attack and saving me from being flash-fried. "You're wrong about that, Electro," the voice of Captain America spoke as the shield turned on its axis and curved behind me, turning in mid-air like a boomerang. "The Shocker's got the Avengers looking out for him."

"Hah," Electro boasted as Captain America grabbed his returning shield. "Ain't this just delicious? You're an honorary Avenger now, Herman. Come on, give me a battle cry. What is it? 'Avengers assemble?' Oh, wait, you can't, because there AREN'T any more Avengers!" He motioned around him. "Thor's unconscious, Iron Man's on lock down, and hell, I even have Nick Fury out for the count. Reaper's got Wonder Man under control. All that's left is this World War Two fossil, and a dumb, big-boobed blonde bitch."

"Smile when you say that, Dillon." Ms. Marvel cracked her knuckles together, a dark look on her face. "Better men than you have called me that and lived to regret it."

"Then come over here and take your best shot, blondie." Electro reached out, his pointer finger a small jagged bolt, and tapped his chin, the current of electricity flowing between them. "I'm immortal now, and I can take anything you think you can dish out."

"Immortal NOW? You were immortal before, Max," I pointed out. My hands were at my sides, thumbs on the triggers just in case. Maybe I could get a shot off if he got distracted. "You bragged about it back in the church."

"Oh, that? That wasn't immortality. I was a package of walking meat, Herman, with bullet holes in my chest. Yeah, I had forever in front of me, but I owed that to the Grim Reaper. Now, though..." He held up his lightning hands, arcing bolts between them as he spoke. "...this is all me. Being dead removed any limits on my storage capacity, Herman. I'm not a walking battery anymore. I burned it all away, all the flesh, bone, the sinew. I'm all lightning now. Pure electricity. It's like Frankenstein's monster...forget magic, baby. Lighting, THAT'S the true source of life and death. And I can just keep making more of it. So...yeah. Max Dillon's dead, Herman. There's nothing left of him. Only Electro."

"He's incredibly powerful now," Captain America responded. "Dillon is right. There's nothing left of him but the lightning, and he knows how to use it for proper effect. He overloaded Iron Man's and punched out Thor."

"Wait...he punched out Thor," I asked. "No way!"

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that. I still got that magical tingle from holding his hammer earlier..." A smile stretched across his buzzing face. "Shoving me in the water didn't do anything but cause a whole bunch of sparks and steam, Herman. When I crawled back on the shore, I went right back to slugging it out with Thor...and like Cap said, I knocked him the hell out. Let's face it. You guys are outclassed against me."

"Cap," I said in a quiet voice, "tell me you have a plan."

"Herman, do you think you could help Iron Man get his armor..." That was all I heard Captain America say to me before a bolt of lightning slammed into my chest. I flew backwards like I had been hit with a sledgehammer, slamming in the ground. My heart raced as the power cut across my nerves, sending mix signals and causing my muscles to convulse. The Darkhold bounced to one side, landing in a patch of grass, well out of my reach.

"Herman Schultz is mine," I heard a voice growl. "His actions brought me to this stage, but I owe him for the beatings and embarrassments he's handed me." Electro put his hand out towards Ms. Marvel and Captain America. "You two first. Come on."

I tried to sit up, but my body refused to work with me. The electricity lingered, keeping my muscles locked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two Avengers rush forward, Captain America leading with his shield, wincing under his half-mask, while Ms. Marvel's fists were outstretched. She reached him first, but Electro snapped out of the way, leaving a trail of sparks in his wake. Ms. Marvel stopped as well, spinning in mid-air and going for a quick roundhouse. As she did so, Captain America swung his shield at Electro. Done right, the poor sap's skull would have been crushed between a rock and a hard place. Instead, one moment he was there, and the next, Electro was two steps to his left. It sounded like hell's bells going off as her fist impacted into Cap's shield. The vibrations rippled through the air, a deep gonging sound that echoed across the lawn.

"Too slow," Electro hissed as he clapped a hand down on the shoulders of Captain America and Ms. Marvel. Both of them instantly went ramrod straight as voltage poured through their bodies. Groaning, I tried to get back to my feet, to push myself up, but my arms gave out from under me, and I fell right back down. The being of pure electricity that was now Electro flooded their bodies with current, the electricity arcing over Captain America's shield and causing Ms. Marvel's blonde hair to float.

I was barely able to get back to my knees by the time Electro let them go. Both Avengers dropped to ground. Ms. Marvel was on her back, gasping for air, while Captain America, flat on his stomach, groaned, his fingers clutching at the ground. "It's funny," Electro buzzed at he passed their fallen bodies. "A few days ago, I would have crapped my pants at the very thought of taking on the damn Avengers. Now, I'm going down in history as the guy who killed them. Huh. THIS is what self-confidence feels like."

He grabbed me, digging two fingers under my chin. I fought for breath as he lifted me up, my skin twitching where his lightning fingers touched me. "Herman, Herman, Herman," Electro said, holding me up so my face was even with where his would have been if he still had one. "Tell me this ain't cosmic comedy. You're the last hero standing, and I'm going to off you for being a goody two-shoes."

One arm tried to raise up, only to be swatted down, the parrying blow feeling like someone held a large 9-volt up to my forearm. "The compressor's a nice trick. It's probably how you managed to take out Baron Mordo and the Rhino. So how did it feel, Herman, killing your best friend?"

"Beating the hell out of you," I said between clenched teeth, "is going to make me feel a lot better."

His laugh sounded like a transformer overloading. "Where the hell did this defiance come from? The old Shocker would have headed for the damn hills by now! Look at you know. Teaming with the Avengers, using a magic book, an air compressor on your back...a week ago, no one on the damn planet could have called any of this. You, a Boy Scout, and me, on the cusp of godhood."

"Really? Take a look around, Electro," I managed to choke out. "You may have beaten the Avengers, but SHIELD's out there somewhere. And you know what else," I added, "Norman Osborn's got himself a super team. Venom, Bullseye, Moonstone...freakin' Ares too. Oh...and every zombie on this planet is back where they're supposed to be. Dead. This is nothing more than a last stand, Electro. You ain't gonna pull this one off..."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe go screw yourself. In any case, I'm done talking to you. You got me killed. I still ain't forgiven you for that." His hand gripped my neck with a firm hold, and I could feel the electricity beginning to run through me. The other arm pulled back over his shoulder, an electric hand clenching a fistful of lightning. "Say good night, Herman..."  
"Leave him be."

That voice boomed from behind Electro. In most cases, you think I'd be overjoyed to hear someone tell Electro to refrain from popping my head off my shoulders. This time though, I wasn't too enthralled. All the voice I heard meant was the worst was coming around the bend, a freight train heading my way.

"What? Damn it, man, you let him live earlier and looked what happened!"

"I said, leave...him...be, Dillon. I am still your master, no matter what form you currently hold on this plane of existence."

Electro's eyes narrowed, but he lowered his fist. The current running through me remained, but at a much lower level, paralyzing me as opposed to frying my nerves. "Alright. But you're going to regret letting this guy live. More lives than the Black Cat."

"Not quite." It was the figure of Death that walked towards us, backlit by the red portal, a cape torn and ripped all along its edges, a body thrown over its shoulder, and a wicked scythe where one hand should have been. With restrained glee on his face, the Grim Reaper dumped the unconscious body of Wonder Man alongside that of Ms. Marvel. The red-eyed Avenger's body was bruised, covered in a multitude of scrapes and slashes. His breathing was ragged and shallow, his shoulder shuddering with each breath his lungs took. Reaper wasn't look too much like a spring chicken either. His armor was beat up, scuffed and torn apart. Half his face was covered with a bruise already a deep shade of purple. But he was the last man standing, not his brother, and that was the most important thing. "Herman Schultz is just a man, nothing more. But he's a man who's been at the center of some extraordinary events," the Reaper intoned as he came towards Electro and I. "All the strings of fate, for one brief moment in the history of time, are crossing over the existence of this two-bit safecracker. Do you know what that means, Dillon? It means Herman here has one last role to play."

"Yeah, and it should be that of a corpse," Electro said with snark oozing out of every word. "Come on, Reaper, just kill him right now. You've seen the movies, you know what happens when you let the hero live!"

"Your problem, Dillon, was that you always thought too small." Reaper stopped a few feet away from me. He studied me from the depths of his mask, his eyes sunken in his face. "Isn't this just something? A two-bit villain who couldn't get the time of day from Spider-Man, a thug who couldn't get a full grasp on his power, and me. We're the last ones standing. The fate of the world is in our hands. And it looks like you're outnumbered, Herman," he said with a dark chuckle.

"I kind of like my odds...the way I see it, it's one-on-one," I managed to say with a smirk. "Me vs. a half-wit and a half-wit."

The scythe whipped up. The very tip of it hung centimeters from my nose, a drop of Wonder Man's blood glistening on the end. "Yes, Herman. Please taunt the necromancer who raised up the living dead, beat the Avengers, and is now about to bring a god into this world. For someone so clever, you really are quite stupid."

"I'm not so dumb not to notice, Eric, that the living dead aren't quite so living anymore. Oh," I added, "almost forgot, all those refugees you were going to turn the zombies loose on to power your boss' return to the world are still breathing, and under SHIELD's guns. And I don't think Electro here can generate the type of juice you need."

"True...but you don't think there wasn't a backup plan or any sort? Contingencies weren't planned for, or hiccups weren't taken into consideration? Please, Herman. You don't just start a zombie uprising one night because you were BORED." He turned away, motioning towards the portal with his scythe. "Everything that could be planned for was planned. In a world of superheroes and demigods, Herman, you have to make sure it's all accounted for. You don't think for a second I didn't have a plan to defeat the Avengers? To deal with SHIELD? Look around you, Herman!" He swung his scythe wide to encompass the fallen bodies all around us. "Earth's mightiest heroes prostrate at my feet. Heroes are so damn predictable, always falling within certain parameters. Patterns, known courses of action...all planned over weeks and weeks. Hell, even Norman Osborn was accounted for! You don't think I didn't know he'd be out there, somewhere, waiting for the perfect time to swoop in for maximum media exposure? Or that, somehow, someone would reverse the zombie plague and deprive me of the needed life energy to bring Dormammu to this plane? I...knew...it...ALL!"

Pause.

"Except for you, Herman." He half-turned, glancing back over his shoulder at me as he spoke. "You were never accounted for. You were never taken into consideration. I don't think you even crossed my mind when I was assembling my group of minions and pawns. And yet, here you are. The last one standing. I...I just cannot wrap my mind around it."

"Don't try," Electro hissed. "Just KILL him!"

"No. No, Dillon..."

"Listen to your boss, Max," I suggested.

"You see, Dillon...I don't know the role Herman has yet to play. He's played two very large ones already. Inspiring humanity and wresting control of the Darkhold away from Baron Mordo. Purely stunning, and something VERY unexpected from you. At the very least, he's earned the right to see the ending played out."

He turned back towards the portal. "I may not have been able to sacrifice human beings, but the death energy given off by two billion dead zombies at their moment of de-animation is a worthy substitute. You see, Herman? By ending the zombie apocalypse, you still doomed mankind. Hold him, Dillon. Make sure he doesn't interfere."

A firm hand fell on my shoulder. "You managed to blunder your way into seeing the end of the future, Herman. If I was in charge, you'd be frying from the inside out right now."

"DORMAMMU!" Louder than one would have thought, the voice of Eric Williams, the Grim Reaper, echoed across the Great Lawn of Central Park. "THE SACRIFICE HAS BEEN MADE! THE CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN MET! THE STARS ARE RIGHT!" He raised his arms before the portal, the scythe a long shadow of black against the bright red. "I, YOUR HAND PICKED SERVANT, CALL YOU TO THIS PLANE! COME FORTH, MY LORD! COME FORTH AND CLAIM ALL THAT IS YOURS, NOW AND FOREVER!"

I would have been happy, at this point, to see Norman Osborn and his Thunderbolts flying to the rescue. But instead, the portal suddenly flared a dark, blood red. The tendrils that had swirled around the edges flared outward, a strong wind gusting from inside the magic opening. The sound of wind tore at me, a dagger twisting into my eardrums. Beyond it, behind the rushing air, I heard it. A deep rumble, low in volume, but quickly growing louder. It boomed towards the portal from inside as the Reaper called it onward.

"THE TIME IS NOW! THIS EXISTANCE IS YOURS! COME ON, DREAD LORD! I BEG YOU!"

The booming sounds became a distinct beat, a rapid tempo approaching. I turned my eyes away, the sound squeezing my head, but a firm hand turned me back.

"Hey, this is what you wanted, Herman. Here's the big bad himself, the end of days, the destruction of this world." A buzzing chuckle came from the Villain of Voltage. "This is going to be too cool."

"How can you want this? How can you sit here while the Grim Reaper ends the world, Max!"

"What's the world ever done for me, Herman? This one dies. I go on at Dormammu's side to another one. And another. And another. All the while knowing everyone on this little ball of mud's kicked the bucket. You can't buy that feeling, Herman. You have to earn it."

I found my voice, the words that would probably get me killed. "You are a sad, bitter man, Max."

"Yeah, maybe. But I ain't the one staring at my impending doom, am I?"

"COME FORTH, DORMAMMU...COME FORTH!"

A hand burst from the portal, magical energy splashing like bloody water. The hand glistened with blackness, drops of red running down the dark leather. It sounded like a hole was being ripped in reality, a tear of screaming and agony as the hand, about the size of the Rhino, slammed down on the grass. The portal's edges bulged as a forearm squeezed its way out, fingers clawing at the ground for purchase.

"YES," the Reaper exclaimed as a second hand shot out, stretching the portal to unimaginable dimensions as the cries of the damn echoed across the park. "COME FORTH, MY LORD! COME FORTH!"

A million people experiencing the worst torture imaginable, and only the strong grip of Electro kept me from falling to my knees as my legs threatened to give out at the sound. From the edges of the portal, a ribbon of red ripped across the air, energy lashing out onto the ground. From the portal itself, an orange glow announced his presence. My eyes squeezed shut. I didn't want to see it. A glimpse of him, back in the church, had almost driven me mad. The sound of creation bleeding ripped at my spine, ice cold shivers worse than any jolt Electro could have given me. It built and built and built, a rising crescendo of suffering. Heat blazed across my face, the flames dancing on my eyes even with them squeezed shut.

"Make it stop," I heard myself saying over and over again as the god came into being. "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..."

With a loud snap, the screaming suddenly stopped. One moment, the damned wailed, and the next, only the sounds of an empty city.

"Open your eyes, Herman," Electro said. "You want to see this...how often do you get to see a demigod in the damn flesh?"

"I don't want to," I murmured like a scared child. But I did. Electro was right. This was a being more powerful than anything else I had ever encountered, one that strode over worlds and ended dimensions. He was a magical atom bomb...I had to look. I had to see.

He towered in front of the now-normal-sized portal, six stories tall, easily. His arms and legs were covered with segmented black leather armor, and a streak of bright crimson ran up the front. His head was a roiling mass of fire with facial features, no eyes in his sockets, but eternity in his stare. This was him, in the proverbial flesh. Dormammu. The Dread Lord. Here on Earth.

And never in my entire life had I felt so incredibly, incredibly small.

X

"Master!" Reaper's voice held elation and joy as he took a stepped towards him. "You've arrived! Now we can..."

"WILLIAMS! YOU IDIOT!"

His voice was thunder, booming across the park. Instantly, Reaper's arms fell, his shoulders slumping, as in his first actions upon this planet, his master berated him.

"WHERE ARE MY SACRIFICES? WHERE IS THE PRECIOUS LIFE ENERGY? WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME HERE NOW? IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE A BLATHERING FOOL!"

"But...but..." The confidence has instantly left him, and the Grim Reaper went from striding conqueror to scolded child in seconds. "...it worked! You're here now, striding this planet like the king you are! The energies were enough to call you forth!"

"THE ENERGIES? YOU SUMMONED ME USING DEATH ENERGY! THE ENERGY FROM TWO BILLION DEAD ZOMBIES DOES NOT COMPARE TO THE LIFE ENERGY OF FIVE THOUSAND LIVING SOULS! I REQUIRED THE SACRIFICES OF THE LIVING TO REACH MY FULL POWER!" The god sighed, disappointed etched on the flames of his skull. "NOW, BECAUSE OF YOUR INCOMPETENCE, INSTEAD OF ENJOYING THE DELIGHTS THIS PLANET HAS TO OFFER, I WILL HAVE TO PERFORM THE SACRIFICES MYSELF! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME THAT WILL TAKE! A SIMPLE TASK I PUT BEFORE YOU, AND YOU FAILED MISERABLY!"

I would have enjoyed watching the Grim Reaper getting schooled if I wasn't quaking in fear. The anger of Dormammu was directed at Eric Williams and him alone, and the body language of the necromancer told the entire story. "No," he squeaked, his confidence completely shot, "it wasn't my fault! It was..."

"I WILL BROOK NO EXCUSES! IT WAS YOUR FAULT, AND YOURS ALONE! YOU HAD THE DARKHOLD! YOU HAD MY APPRENTICE BARON MORDO! YOU HAD THE POWERS I BESTOWED UPON YOU! YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT THE VANGUARD OF THE WAVE OF ZOMBIES, OVERRUNNING SHIELD'S ATTEMPTS TO HOLD BACK THE TIDE OF DEATH! INSTEAD, YOU SNUCK IN THE BACK DOOR LIKE A COWARD AND THREW YOURSELF AT YOUR BROTHER! WITHOUT YOU AT THE FOREFRONT, THESE HAIRLESS APES THREW BACK WHAT WAS TO BE THE KEY TO MY TRIUMPH!"

The black hand reached out slowly, pointing at the now cowering Grim Reaper. "YOUR PETTY VENDETTA AGAINST YOUR BROTHER HAS COST ME THE ULTIMATE VICTORY, ERIC WILLIAMS! YOU HAVE FAILED IN YOUR TRUE TASK!"

"But..."

"YOU ARE NO LONGER OF USE TO ME. BEGONE."

And he walked forward, passing past the Grim Reaper in one stride. The being that had brought the living dead back to life was now begging for attention from a wayward father. "Master..." I could hear the Grim Reaper cry out behind him. "It wasn't my fault! IT WASN'T MY FAULT! IT WAS SCHULTZ'S! IT WAS ALL HIS!"

The large black boot came to a rest in front of me. I averted my eyes, looking down at the ground. Even then, I felt his gaze on my neck, the heat from his stare like a third-degree sunburn.

"HERMAN SCHULTZ. GAZE UPON ME."

When a god tells you to do something, you find yourself doing it, no matter how badly you don't want to. Slowly, I panned my vision up. He towered over me, a giant who would squash me with a flick of his finger. Now, instead of his former lackey Eric Williams, I was taking the full effect of his state, his fiery gaze locked onto me.

"YOU. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO TOOK MY KINGDOM AWAY. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO TOPPLED AN EMPIRE OF THE DEAD. YOU KILLED MY APPRENTICE. HERMAN SCHULTZ... AND YET, WHO ARE YOU?"

He leaned over, giving me a full view of his face hanging in the air like an orange moon. "YOU NEVER EXISTED TO ME. YOU NEVER CROSSED MY PATH. AND YET, HERE AND NOW, FATE'S MADE YOU ITS CHAMPION. YOU HAVE STOOD IN MY WAY, UNKOWINGLY, TIME AND TIME AGAIN. RARELY HAVE I SEEN FATE INTERTWINE AND WEAVE A WICKED WEB ALL OVER ONE PERSON TO STAND AGAINST ME." After a second, Dormammu straightened back up. "AND THOSE SHE HAS CHOSEN, ALL HAVE DIED AT MY HAND. YOU WILL TOO, FOR OBSTRUCTING MY PATH. UNTIL SUCH A TIME, HERMAN SCHULTZ, I GIVE YOU LEAVE TO MULL OVER THE LAST FEW HOURS OF YOUR PITIFUL EXISTANCE." He motioned with a hand, dismissing me. "BEGONE."

Relief filled me even with the impending threat the statement beheld. My eyes were still locked on his gaze as a voice screamed behind us. "What? No! It's his fault!" The Grim Reaper flew towards me, sprinting across the grass. "Everything was his doing! Everything! Punish him," he pleaded his former master. "PUNISH HIM!"

"HERMAN SCHULTZ IS AN INSIGNIFICANT INSECT WHO HAS ACCOMPLISHED GREAT THINGS. YOU, ERIC WILLIAMS, WERE A GREAT INSECT WHO ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING OF SIGNIFICANCE. HERMAN SCHULTZ DEFEATED THE INCREDIBLE HULK. YOU, WITH ASSISTANCE, BARELY DEFEATED YOUR BROTHER. YOU ARE NOT ONE TO MAKE SUCH CALLS."

"Him? HIM! FINE!" Williams raised his scythe. Crimson energy began to glow at the tip. "Then I will punish himself myself! Herm..."

The level six blast ripped across his body, shredding his cloak and slamming him backwards. Reaper crashed into the ground, screaming loudly. The arm holding his scythe was underneath him at an angle, and just above his elbow, a sharp bubble jabbed out, just keeping under the skin.

"Seriously, you should listen to the Dread Lord," I somehow managed to quip. "Pick your battles with a little more care, Eric."

Dormammu ignored the yelling Reaper and myself, walking past us. Where he was going, I had no idea, but you don't ask a guy...thing...god like him what his plans are...

"Hey, Dormammu!"

...unless you're very brave or very, very dumb.

The god stopped. He lifted his head, turning slightly to the side. "MAXWELL DILLON. YOU DEEM TO SPEAK TO ME?"

"Yeah, I deem." Electro had moved away from me, getting closer (closer?) to Dormammu. "Hey, a chance like this only comes along once in a while, and I might as well take it," the living bolt of lightning said. His voice held the confidence that the Grim Reaper's had lacked, talking to Dormammu like they were two thugs passing time on a street corner. "Look, the Grim Reaper screwed up, and you kicked him to the curb. And Herman here offed Baron Mordo and the rest of your crew. It looks to me like you're all out of minions..."

"I DON'T NEED MINIONS. I AM THE DREAD LORD."

"...I know, I know." Electro's voice buzzed, but it never wavered or dipped while he stood there talking to a god. He was ignoring me now, his focus entirely on Dormammu. "But you don't mind having them, do you? A guy to boss around, a guy to give orders to, and a guy who gets stuff done. You need a second in command...a Darth Vader type. And I'm your man."

"Max! What the hell..."

"Shut up, Herman," he said, raising a threatening hand towards me. "You took my bread and butter away. I'm working out a new deal."

"SO YOU'RE JUST TRYING TO SAVE YOUR OWN SKIN?"

"If you screwed this up for me," Electro muttered before responding to Dormammu. "Yeah, maybe I am. This whole week's been about one thing. Me on the winning side. And I never screwed up. I did exactly what I was told, and the whole time, I kept telling Eric here to quit screwing around. I may not be a spell slinger like Mordo was, but I'm loyal, I follow orders...hell, I got shot by the Punisher...and while I don't know anything about magic, I know this. There's nothing more primal than lightning...except maybe fire."

"THERE'S MORE." Now Dormammu turned. His full gaze was on Electro, staring down at the dynamo...and the bastard never flinched. "WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT, MAXWELL DILLON? WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF THE DEAL?"

"I hate this world," was Electro's reply. "I hate everything about it. I hate how it treated me. I hate how I was supposed to treat it. It never did a damn thing for me. I want to watch it burn. I want to watch it bleed. I want to watch it...die."

"HMMM...VERY WELL. PERFORM ONE TASK FOR ME, AND I WILL BRING YOU INTO MY FLOCK AS MY NEW APPRENTICE."

"Just like that, huh? Alright, you ain't a guy to dick around." Electro flared brightly, the aura around him flashing with white light. "What do you want me to do, boss?"

"KILL ERIC WILLIAMS."

"...oh, hell, is that all?" Electro spun around without hesitation.

The Grim Reaper was still on the ground, holding his broken arm, when he heard Dormammu's command. His eyes got wide as Electro pointed both hands at him. "No! Don't do this, I can..."

Twin currents of lightning shot from Electro's palms. They snaked through the open holes in the Grim Reaper's armor, and his body suddenly began to convulse, shaking and twitching on the ground. He flopped like a fish, his screams a constant stutter as voltage poured through his entire body. Electro's "face" never flinched, and the current never let up as he obeyed Dormammu's command.

My mind was in shock as the Villain of Voltage as he electrocuted his former boss. My body, however, was moving. The focus of Dormammu didn't seem to be on me, and Electro was too busy frying the Grim Reaper, pumping him full of so much voltage he couldn't even fight back. After maybe a minute, Electro cut off the power supply. Smoke rose from the charred, steaming armor of the Grim Reaper, and the sweet smell of roast pork filled the air. "He ain't gonna get up and look for a snack, is he," Electro asked as the remains of Eric William popped and cracked inside his metal shell.

"NO. THE ZOMBIE PLAGUE HAS PASSED FROM THIS EARTH. BUT ONLY TEMPORARILY. TOGETHER, YOU AND I WILL BRING IT BACK, AND WE WILL FINISH THE APOCALYPSE THAT WAS STARTED." Dormammu stretched out his hand, hovering over the awaiting Electro. "ACCEPT MY GIFTS, MAXWELL DILLON, AND LET US END THIS MISERABLE PLANET!"

Ribbons of red energy fell from Dormammu's outstretched hand, weaving in mid-air like snakes as they slithered down towards Electro. The living dynamo tilted his head back, arms outstretched, as the ribbons reached him. "Now we're talking," Electro proclaimed as they wrapped around him, slowly constricting his electric form. Wherever they touched, the bright white light fell away, darkening as Electro slowly disappeared from view, the ribbons soon covering the entirety of his body.

"MAXWELL DILLON," Dormammu proclaimed, "SHED WHATEVER WAS LEFT OF YOUR OLD LIFE, AND RISE NOW AS MY APPRENTICE!"

As I ducked behind Electro, searching in the tall grass, the red ribbons snapped upwards like bungee cords, pulling back into his hands. What they left behind was a figure of the deepest red, bloody lightning and drops of black ichor racing around its form. It lifted its hands towards its face, staring at the bolts of electricity that arced back and forth between its outstretched palms. "I..." a gruff voice. "...feel...this...this is power!" Red lightning shot into the sky as Electro raised his hands, earth to sky splitting in an instance with a crack of thunder. "It's like I have a nuclear reactor inside of me!"

"THIS IS BUT A SMALL TASTE OF THE POWER I CAN GIVE YOU, MAXWELL DILLON."

"No...I said it earlier, boss, and I'll say it again. Maxwell Dillon's shuffled off this mortal coil. Only Electro's left."

"VERY WELL. CLAIM YOUR MANTLE, ELECTRO. AS YOUR FIRST TASK, I COMMAND YOU TO RECOVER THE DARKHOLD. WITH THAT TOME IN MY PHYSICAL POSSESSION, RAISING THE DEAD WILL BE A SIMPLE MATTER."

"Got it," Electro replied, turning in place as he tried to get his bearings. "Now, when I shot Herman, he was standing..."

"...right here."

It was a level ten that cracked the air between me and Electro. The energy rushed around him, the air exploding and red bolts shooting in every direction. He staggered, just a bit, like being smacked with a stiff wind. As the attack faded away, he turned around slowly. A fist, shaking with pure power, was raised in the air. "Herman."

"Max." I clutched the Darkhold in one arm. The other arm aimed a vibro-smasher at Electro. My feet were planted to absorb as much as recoil as I could. "I know what you're going to say, Max. I'm a fool for even trying to put up a fight. I should just hand the book over. And if I do, you'll kill me quick. Hell, you might even make me an offer to come work for you."

"And your response will be 'screw you.' We know each other too well, Herman. It's too bad in a way. I could see you as my long-term nemesis if you actually survived this night." Electro took a step forward. "But you can't outrun me. You can't fight me. You can't even hold a candle to me. I don't even need to suck the juice from your little work-up you got on your back because it's nothing compared to what I got. So, I'm just gonna kill you for that book, Herman."

_I don't suppose you got a spell in there to help me out,_ I asked the Darkhold...and only got silence in return. No surprise there.

"You made your call, Max, when you stabbed humanity in the back. But if you think you're getting this book without a fight, you're mistaken."

"And if you think you can put up a fight, you're mistaken."

"I beat you once," I replied. "And I can beat you again."

"Why, Herman? Seriously, before I fry you like a fillet of fish, I have to know...look at me." He stretched his arms out, electricity dancing along his limbs like a Jacob's Ladder. "I'm a being of pure magical electricity. I just took on the mantle of a demigod. I killed the Grim Reaper. I beat the hell out of the Avengers. The first time we tussled, you barely pulled it out. What in the world makes you think you have a snowball's chance in hell of standing up to me this time?"

"Simple," I said, rolling my shoulders and adjusting my aim. "Someone's got to. If no one else is going to, it might as well be me."

"And you really believe this, Herman."

"I lasted this long with the world crumbling around me. I bet I can squeeze out a few more minutes." And I believed it. No insight, no second-guessing, no bemoaning my fate. I had made it this far. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Tonight?

I had been both.

Electro's laugh didn't faze me in the least. "How incredible. I guess the zombie apocalypse has made you dumber." His hand blazed with red energy, the color of sky at morning. "I've wasted enough time not killing you." With a small cry, his hand pushed forward. I stood my ground as the lightning flew towards me...

...and at the last moment, turned ninety degrees to the right, avoiding me entirely.

"And I guess," I said, a smirk on my face as Electro's features took on a shocked, no pun intended, look, "that the zombie apocalypse taught you to always check your six. Guess who just got their second wind?"

The red lightning vanished into the stone hammer wielded by the God of Thunder. "You. You don't hurt another soul," Thor's cold voice said through clenched teeth. He stood, bruises all over his arms, cuts on his face, staring at the form of Electro with determination on his face. "No more death. No more pain. No more."

"YOU! THE SON OF ODIN! ELECTRO, TAKE CARE OF HIM!"

Electro's hands slammed together, a thunderclap splitting the air as bolts of lightning exploded towards Thor. The Avenger gripped Mjolnir in both hands, holding it out in front of him, his lips pressed tightly together. The front tine of the bolt of lightning slammed into the hammer's edge, forcing Thor back a step. His teeth gritted together as he pushed the hammer forward, into the current being generated by Electro. "I said no more!"

Electro's arms pushed out, the lightning snapping and whipping like a fishing line being entangled by a great white shark. "And I said, die! Die!"

Thor gritted his teeth, the air around him crackling with naked energy as Electro poured it on. "You fail to hear me, Electro. I am the God of Thunder, and I said...NO...MORE!"

"You are in no position to stop me, Avenger," Electro responded. "I have you pinned in place!"

In response, Thor took a step forward. He pushed the lightning back, shortening the streams of power coming from Electro like he was pushing his way through a wall of water. "You deem yourself worthy of the mantle of a God of Lightning? Your power stems from a false being!" I watched in awe as Thor forced his way towards Electro, Mjolnir in the lead.

"No. Damn it! How are you doing this," Electro screamed as Thor strode towards him with determination. "I beat you! I beat you!"

"We are the Avengers, Dillon," Thor replied. With a roar of defiance, Thor left his feet, Mjolnir propelling him through the air. "We know not the meaning of the word 'defeated!'" Electro barely had time to lower his hands and brace himself before the magical hammer slammed into his electrical form. A bright, white-and-red light flashed over the area at the moment of impact. I raised my arm, shielding my eyes before the scene could permanently scar my retinas, just as the sonic boom washed over me. The hair on my head blew backwards, and I barely stood my ground. The Darkhold jumped and leapt in my grip, trying to squeeze free, but I kept my arm tight around its binding.

The light subsided, the echo of the impact fading in the distance. I peeked over my forearm to see Thor standing tall...

...and Electro staring right back at him.

The ground around Electro had been blown backwards, leaving Max in a damn crater, and he was still standing. "Not enough gun," Electro snarked towards Thor, the red energy still cracking around him. "You just don't get it, Thor," he boasted. "There's no way you can beat me."

"You're the one not getting it, Dillon," a mechanical voice came from nearby. "Do you really think we'd let Thor have all the fun?" Electro's gaze snapped over his shoulder as, hovering about five feet off the ground, Iron Man, his armor scorched silver in several places, crossed his arms and stared down at the Villain of Voltage.

"What...how did you..." Electro stammered.

"Rebooted my armor into safe mode," Iron Man replied. "Backup systems, redundancies, parallel circuits. Worst you could do to me was give me a blue screen of death, Dillon."

"Hell," another voice added, "I want your operating system." Zipping past over head, MACH-IV took an opposite position to Iron Man, the blaster on his arm locked in on Electro. "I know I'm not an Avenger, but this bastard blew me out of the sky. I want a piece of him."

"I think there's going to be plenty to go around." Wonder Man, some of the cuts on his body still dripping blood, was on one knee, supporting himself, red eyes locked on Electro. "That bastard killed my brother. Eric might have been a mass-murdering sociopath, but that doesn't change the fact that you fried him, Dillon. And I'm gonna stripe your hide for that one."

"It's like Thor said, Max." That was Captain America. His armor still popped like a cooling engine, but there wasn't any doubt in my mind, or Electro's, that the fighting spirit hadn't left his body. "We're the Avengers. We don't know the meaning of the word 'quit.' You got lucky before, Electro, that's all."

I bit back a laugh at the look of incredulous shock on Electro's face. "Seriously, Max," I chimed in, waving a hand around my eyes, "you gotta work on this peripheral vision thing. You don't think I wouldn't have been dumb enough to stand against you if the damn Avengers weren't gearing up for round two, do you?"

"AHEM."

It's weird to hear a god cough politely.

"I DO HATE TO INTERRUPT THE HEROIC BOASTING, BUT YOU ALL HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE SIX-STORY DREAD LORD THAT IS TOWERING OVER YOU." Dormammu sounded almost offended as he spoke. "DO YOU SO CASUALLY DISMISS ME?"

"Nay." That was Thor's reply. His eyes never left Electro as he answered Dormammu. "Thou are next."

"NEXT? NO, THOR...I AM NOW!" The hand-shaped shadow at Thor's feet grew rapidly, and the God of Thunder just barely dove out of the way as Dormammu's palm missed flattening him. "I AM THE PAST, I AM NOW, I AM THE FUTURE! I AM ETERNITY!"

Thor simply got back on his feet, refusing to brush the dirt off his shoulders as Iron Man spoke. "I think that's our cue, Avengers. Herman," Iron Man said, nodding towards the being of red lightning, "you know what do to with Electro. Everyone else, and this includes you, MACH-IV...let's go kick the ass of a god."

Wonder Man picked up Captain America as he took off. Even as all five heroes took off into the air, you could hear that famous refrain, voices mixing together as they went, willingly, to fight the Dread Lord Dormammu...a refrain that never failed to put fear in the heart of villains, and inspire the spirits of the good guys.

"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"

X

The words reached my ears, but I never took my eyes off of Max, even for a second. He was staring up at the ascending heroes, the electricity that composed his face giving off an air of confused rage. "No...don't turn your back on me! DAMN IT, I'M THE GOD OF LIGHTNING!"

"The way I see it, Max," I said snidely, "you're not a threat. You're not even a blip on the radar of the Avengers. I mean, hell, they left the Shocker to deal with you, and I've been getting my ass kicked all week. Shows how concerned you make them, huh?"

Slowly, Electro lowered his head. "You," he hissed like a downed power line. "You, Herman. You tried to take everything from me. My life. My reputation. My rightful place at the table. And even now, when there's no one left to save you, you mock me."

My body was tensed to jump in every direction at once, a biological fly-by-wire system, but I forced myself to stay in place. I knew what to do with Electro, and in about thirty seconds, my job would be done. I just had to be patient, and keep his attention on me. "All that power, Max, enough to blow me off the face of the planet and scatter the atoms, and you still haven't done it. How many times did you have me dead-to-rights, and you just...couldn't...finish the job."

"Herman, watch your..."

"You might have Dormammu's blessing," I interrupted, "and enough juice inside of you to light up Times Square, but that little inferiority complex of yours just won't let you close the deal. Guess what, Max? A loser with the power of a god? HE'S STILL A LOSER!"

Some of you might be thinking "Herman's lost his mind. Electro's going to fry him." Others might be thinking "Herman's obviously got a plan. Let's see what happens." The first half of you? Go screw yourselves. The second half? Thanks for coming along this journey of personal growth. Because you could bet your ass I had a plan.

"I'm going to kill you, Herman." No boasting, no bombast, just a promise.

"You haven't yet, Max. I don't think you have the guts. You fried the Grim Reaper, but that's because he was helpless and had a broken arm. Me?" I pointed my vibro-smasher at him as I taunted him. "I kicked your ass, and I didn't even have my gauntlets at the time. Face it, Max...you're afraid of me."

"Afraid!" Above us, I could hear the sounds of combat as the Avengers engaged Dormammu as Electro raged. "I'm not afraid of you! I'm not afraid of anyone! I control the lightning!"

Man, did I sound this much like a whiny pussy when I was caught doing criminal deeds? Maybe I owe Spider-Man an apology if I ever see him again. "Yeah, well...I got me a secret weapon, Max. Why do you think I'm standing here out in the open, because I'm stupid? Nope. I got a little something up my sleeve that's going to rock your world."

"Really, Herman? What is it?" He took a step towards me, and I did my best not to flinch or move back. "Does that compressor on your back go up to eleven? Did you shove insulating tape in your ridiculous costume? Or do you have some kind of magic trick under your hat?"

"Nah...actually..."

I looked up at the sky, picking just the right moment as I saw the object speeding towards where we stood on the ground. "...I think she just hit terminal velocity."

The sound of a freight train filled the air just as a bright white streak slammed into Electro. I was caught in the blast wave, flung off my feet and onto my back. The compressor knobs digging into my spine were nothing compared to the pressure that washed over me. Guess it was what getting smacked with one of my blasts was like.

I sat up, the Darkhold tucked under my arm, as the residual energies faded away. I pulled my legs up to my chest, just...enjoying the show, as it were.

She floated a foot off the ground, her hair crackling with energy from her attack, spilling out to all side. The bruises on her arms and legs just accentuated how freakin' hot she was, to say nothing about the skin tight bodysuit that not even rushing air and a fast atmospheric descent could dislodge.

"You wanted the Avengers," Ms. Marvel said as she hovered over Electro's prone form. "Well, you got one. Come on, Electro. I've got a package for you, special delivery. Sign on the dotted line so I can hand you your ass."


	37. The Day the World Went Away

"You blonde bitch! I'm going to..."

Before Electro could finish his threat, a black heel slammed into where his nose would be. And he screamed in pain, scrambling backwards away from the Avenger as she kept herself off the ground.

"I'm sorry, Electro. I didn't hear what you were saying. I was too busy trying to kick your teeth in."

"I said, I'm going to kill you, you blonde bitch!" Electro's hand thrust towards her, and a blood-red bolt exploded from his hand, crackling with energy. It caught Ms. Marvel square in the sternum, staggering her in mid-air for a moment. "It took a magical hammer for Thor to stand up to me," Electro sneered as he climbed back to his feet. "What the hell do you have?"

Her response? She darted forward, recovered from his attack, and slammed her first into Electro's sternum with a snapping jab. The human-shaped form of energy that Electro had become actually buckled, her fist sinking into him for a brief moment, before she flipped, like a swimmer doing a kick-turn, and smacked him under his chin with the steel-tipped toe of her boot. And he flew backwards from the impact. A human-shaped ball of lightning slammed into the ground, and Ms. Marvel just hovered above him, staring down at him. Her face told a tale of grim determination and unleashed anger. Or, to put it another way? Girl was pissed.

"What I have, Electro, is alien-enhanced DNA and a really peeved attitude right now." Electro, making a noise that sounded like a thousand pissed off wasps, shot a bolt of lightning at her, snapping the shot off. It connected with her shoulder, spinning her slightly, but she spun right back, and a blast of energy came from her hand. Electro was hit in the gut, doubling him over. Faster than I had ever seen her move before, she dropped down, her feet inches off the ground as she dropped the double axehandle on the back of Electro's neck before immediately shooting back into the air about ten feet.

"You see, Electro, a bad guy like you, all he sees when he looks at me is the blonde hair and the toned body and the big boobs. Some of the smarter goons..." This time, she side-stepped the lightning, sliding to her right in mid-air to let it sail harmlessly past her. "...they know I hit like a Mack truck and can get hit by one too without really feeling it. The really smart ones, the Doctor Dooms and the Taskmaster's, they know the thing idiots like you forget all the time. I can project energy...and I absorb it."

Another quick dive, but this time, Electro dove out of the way. For a being of lightning, he still moved and avoided shots like a human being, I noticed. Yeah, I know that, six stories about me, the Avengers were battling Dormammu for the fate of the world...but tell me, how the hell could I tear my eyes away from THIS fight?

"So the first time you shocked me and Captain America, you really hurt me. But guess what, Max? I got your code now."

Wham! She swung down and uppercutted Electro as he was trying to stand back up, following through to swing back up into the air.

"I got your juice inside of me...oh, God, that came out wrong." Electro was slow to get back up as Ms. Marvel swung back around. This time, both fists went into the small of his back, propelling him forward a good ten feet, the Avenger never once touching the ground. "I know your power, Electro. That's what I meant. It's dirty and greasy and feels absolutely repulsive, but it's sitting in whatever bits of my DNA absorb power. I can channel it and store it without too much pain. Oh, and since it's magical in nature? That means..."

Wham! This was just a cold cock across his jaw, bolts of lightning arcing through the air like drops of blood.

"...I got a little bit of magic myself. Enough to hit you instead of just passing through you like I would a normal electrical current. Magic's a two way street, Max, and you drew the short end of the stick."

Wham! Another uppercut. Electro still shone brightly, but he staggered, completely open as she followed up with another right hook, still hovering in mid-air with each punch.

"Oh, and since I'm not touching the ground? You can't really arc a current through me, can you? Hell, anything you throw at me hurts about as much as being caught in a summer downpour."

Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham!

Left, right, left, right, Electro would have been toothless if he had any left. A referee should be stopping this fight right now, the way Electro stumbled as Ms. Marvel stalked him. "But you, on the other hand, you're feeling every single shot I give you, Electro. Just because you can dish it out doesn't mean you can take it."

Her hand shot out, steadying Electro for a moment. "Oh, and just as a heads up. Thor usually holds back, because he's a god and could break the world if he wanted to. Me? I'm just a woman who's been magically handcuffed, sent to Limbo, smacked around, had an electric current run through me, been called a blonde bitch three times this evening, and is looking to beat the hell out of someone because of all those things. So if you think I'm holding anything back..."

Ms. Marvel's fist pulled all the way back over her shoulder. She held it there for just a split second, lining up her shot.

"...you're sadly mistaken."

The air cracked as Ms. Marvel's punch smacked Electro squarely in the jaw. Even without the ground to push off, she packed a lot of power, and it all transferred into Dillon. He left his feet like he had been shot with an artillery shell at point blank range, flung backwards by the pure kinetic force of her punch. The poor bastard bounced along the ground when he landed, rolling backwards like a rag doll. When he came to a rest, his arms and legs were splayed out, and the buzzing coming from him was a low groan.

"You can give up now, Electro," Ms. Marvel said as she hovered in place, fists clenched at her sides, "or you can keep resisting. And to warn you, I'm hoping you keep resisting."

He pushed up onto his hands and knees, lifting his head to lock his gaze on Ms. Marvel. He had lost some of the brightness of his aura, but the red lightning still crackled and flowed with the body of the former Maxwell Dillon. "Heh. I'm happy to please you, Ms. Marvel." Electro sat back on his haunches, his head lolling a bit to one side. "What kind of God of Lightning would I be if I let a...what was the phrase you hated...blonde bitch? No, let's get creative. Airhead. Fat whore. Tramp. Nothing more than the Avenger's eye candy. A living embodiment of Rule 34. Oh, yes, I've seen the pictures online, Ms. Marvel. You're nothing more than a joke, easily replaced by some other peroxide powerhouse at a moment's notice."

"You just keep making my day, Electro." She rocketed towards him, both fists extended, going for the knockout shot...

...but Electro leaned backwards, letting her pass over his body. His arms shot up, and grabbed her by the ankles. "Typical, arrogant hero!" He snapped forward, bringing Ms. Marvel over his head and slamming her into the ground. The second she made contact, the red lightning was flowing through her, a current racing up and down her nerves and into the soil. "An Avenger doesn't know the meaning of the word 'defeat?' Then allow me to teach one the definition of the word 'die!'"

Damn it. I took a step forward, my free hand out, before she lashed out with her foot, pulling it free from Electro's grasp. She spun around as best she could, the blast of energy from her hand clipping Electro in the face. She yanked her other leg free and immediately went airborne, out of Electro's range. "Herman, stand back! Your job is to protect the Darkhold!"

"Aw," Electro said as he shot twin bolts of lightning at Ms. Marvel, which she managed to easily avoid, "is the Shocker getting Ms. Marvel to fight his battles for him? I guess when Aleksei died, you needed a new bodyguard, huh, Herman?"

I clenched my fist, but kept the thumb off my trigger. "Actually, I'm all for gender equality, Max. I kicked your ass in the bank, so it's only fair Ms. Marvel gets to kick yours right now!" And she was right. I had to make sure the Darkhold was safe.

Electro dodged the diving attack from Ms. Marvel, but she pulled up just inches from the ground, like a daredevil jet pilot. He sent bolts of lightning shooting after her as she sped along, hugging the nape of the earth, turning on her axis to avoid Electro's attacks before zooming back into the air. "Hold still, woman," Electro proclaimed. He was like an electrical chain gun, waving his hands and sending indiscriminate sprays of lightning into the air. But Ms. Marvel easily weaved her way through the fire like she was avoiding flak. I had several wide open shots as Electro spun in place, expending all his energy with each shocking missile he sent at Ms. Marvel. The red glare was definitely gone now, although lightning still made up Electro's form. He wasn't generating power anymore. He was expending it, all in a futile effort to hit Ms. Marvel. "Damn it, I said hold still," he screamed in frustration.

"What's wrong, Electro? I would think you wouldn't have any problems hitting a whale like me!" She suddenly dropped, going from her darting flight into a nose dive, directly down at where Electro stood. He put his arms above his head, the sky filling with lightning, blowing every bit of voltage he had in an effort to hit her, to stop her...

...and she avoided it all.

She weaved and spun her way towards him, each bolt zipping past her body. I'm talking mere inches of separation between the lightning and her taut frame, and she easily navigated the desperate defenses of Electro like a fighter pilot.

When Ms. Marvel finally got to Electro's level, my eyes went back to him, away from the amazing aeronautic acrobatics...and I was looking at Maxwell Dillon. Crimson electricity still danced along his body, but there was skin, flesh, muscle, and the familiar yellow-and-green costume. The bullet holes still tore across the front of his costume, but underneath it, the skin was fresh and pink.

Dillon himself panted as Ms. Marvel hovered before him. Sweat ran down his face, his chest heaving, his eyes unfocused. "How," he gasped. "How did you avoid all that...that was impossible..."

"That's another word the Avengers don't know, Dillon. 'Impossible.'"

"Well," Electro managed to chuckle. "I'm dry. A dead battery. Go ahead. Take your best shot. Kill me if you got the stones."

She sighed wearily, her eyes beginning to blaze with resigned anger. "You just never learn, Electro. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to do something much, much worse to you."

"If you mean hit me in the groin, Herman's beaten you to it," he said defiantly.

"Ah. Well, that just means I'll have to grab you somewhere else." As I watched, with her still off the ground, Ms. Marvel's hand darted between his legs. To some creeps, this would have been a dream come true. To Electro, through...

His eyes went wide as she gripped him. The air he had managed to breathe in exploded from him in a loud gasp, and a choked sound of agony escaped from his mouth soon after.

"There's other places to hurt a man beside his crotch, Dillon. Where I'm grabbing you now? It ain't your balls, and it ain't your asshole." She ducked slightly, and then both of them zoomed into the air. As a member of the male gender, I winced in sympathy as Ms. Marvel took Electro into orbit...supporting him in a most painful way. I leaned back, watching the pair ascend, the pain too much for even Electro to mount a comeback.

After about five stories, using the nearby Dormammu for reference, the pair rocketed back towards Earth. I braced myself as Ms. Marvel drove Electro into the ground, using that...area...as the brace. No explosion of energy, no outpouring of electricity. Just shaking earth and vibrating teeth as Ms. Marvel cratered him. Electro bounced once into the air before, still holding him, Ms. Marvel hurled him into the ground. He was already limp at the moment of impact, his eyes rolling back into his head as his body shut down. She let go of him, standing over upon the unconscious form of Maxwell Dillon, the Villain of Voltage. "Spidey's not around to say it, so I guess I have to," she said, crossing her arms and giving him a victorious smirk. "Lights out, Electro."

X

"Damn," I said as I wandered over to where Electro was sprawled, "you jacked him up."

"He kept pushing my buttons," Ms. Marvel replied.

Electro's nose had been a fountain of blood before he had gone unconscious. Hell, his nose look more like a mashed cauliflower. His chest rose and fell slowly, and nasty bruises peppered his face.

"Note to self," I said to...myself..."never piss off Ms. Marvel."

She nodded once, and then turned away from the fallen villain. Her head craned up, and my gaze followed. Above us, the sky was a blur of fire and energy as Iron Man, MACH-IV, and Dormammu traded blows, while Thor's hammer glanced off of Dormammu's shoulder. "One down, Herman. Just the big guy to go."

"You guys have a plan, right? You have a plan to deal with Galactus when he shows up hungry for a snack. You have to have one for Dormammu."

"We do. It involves Doctor Strange." She shook her head. "Right now, all we can do is hope he finds his way back from wherever Dormammu pulled him to when he got yanked through the portal. Until then..."

"...you're going to need a lot more firepower," I finished.

"Yeah. Any suggestions?"

"Depends," I answered in an honest tone. "How much do you care about nuclear fallout and property damage in the tri-state area? And even then, I'm willing to bet a nuke wouldn't even scratch him."

"Well...only one thing to do then." She cracked her knuckles while looking up at the fiery face of the Dread Lord.

"Maybe we'll get lucky, he'll call you a blonde bitch, and you'll send him into orbit." As soon as those words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Especially when her eyes turned towards me, and she cracked one knuckle so loud, it sounded like a bone snapping. "Hey," I said weakly, "it worked for kicking Electro's ass..."

"Ms. Marvel! Schultz!"

Oh, thank God for Colonel Fury.

We both turned to see Nick Fury jogging up to the two of us. Behind him, six of SHIELD's finest, wearing full body armor and carrying assault rifles held their formation. For an old man who had gotten his ass kicked a few minutes ago, he was still leading the way, telling any pain in his body to go sit in the corner until it was ready to play nice.

"Colonel," I said, fighting down the urge to salute. "I was wondering what the hell happened to you!"

"Snuck away when Thor was giving Electro the whole 'reason you suck' spiel." Fury came to a stop in front of us. His eyes snapped over to where Electro was unconscious on the ground. "You took out Dillon?"

"Ms. Marvel did," I answered. "Kicked the crap out of him."

He pointed to four of the SHIELD soldiers with him. "You four, restrain Dillon and keep an eye on him." Instantly, three rifles were pointed at the downed villain, while the fourth solider broke out the plasteel zip-ties. "Schultz," Fury said to me, nodding at the tome of magic I clutched in my hands, "this is no time to learn how to read. What the hell is that?"

"It's called the Darkhold, Colonel," I responded as Ms. Marvel kept an eye on Electro while the soldiers tied him up. "It's the book of magic that the Grim Reaper was talking about earlier. Baron Mordo was using it to directly drive the zombies when they broke into the park."

"And, Colonel Fury," Ms. Marvel added, "Herman here used it to put all the zombies down. He's the reason the dead aren't walking around right now."

The eyebrow above Fury's eye-patch raised slightly as he stared at me. "Really? You, Schultz? You worked a book of magic and stopped a zombie plague?" All I could do was nod as I got the full Fury stare, and I could only imagine how bad it would have been if he had both eyes. "Huh," he said after a few seconds, "how about that. Looks like you're good for something after all. You two!" He motioned for the final two soldiers to come over to where we stood. "Gentlemen, your job is to protect this man and the book he's carrying," Fury said, pointing a finger at me. "Do not let anyone or anything near him." The two soldiers nodded, and took up flanking positions on either side of me. "Congratulations, Schultz. You just found yourself under police protection." Before I could snark a reply, he turned to face Ms. Marvel. "So, Dormammu's on the doorstep. What's the plan?"

"Beat the hell out of him," the blonde Avenger replied. "Without Doctor Strange, we really don't have anyone who can give us the magical firepower to deal with him."

"What about someone else? Like Brother Voodoo," Fury countered.

"He's not here. If he shows up, you can throw him into the fray, Colonel, but right now, that well's run dry."

"Damn it. I don't do this magical crap, Ms. Marvel. Give me a target and let SHIELD fill it with lead!" Fury spit on the ground. "Alright, alright. Right now, SHIELD's evacuating the civilians to the south end of the park to get them out of harm's way. Once that's done, I can spare you all the firepower you want..."

A loud crack split the air. Above us, Iron Man spun out of control as Dormammu caught him with a right hand, sending the Avenger well away from him before he could right himself. As soon as he had control again, Iron Man was right back in the fight. Dormammu swung and swatted at the heroes swarming around him, but it was only their small size and speed that kept them from being smacked out of the sky.

"I don't think we have that kind of time, Colonel," I suggested.

"Well, we don't have an option, Schultz. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers at the ass end of Long Island are flying here, but who knows when they'll make it. Oh, and it gets better... apparently, Norman Osborn's thrown together his own little groups of super powered psychopaths. They're currently helping evacuate, but you give me the word, and I'll call them in. Just...they probably won't work well with you and yours, Ms. Marvel."

I stared as Ms. Marvel for a second, and we both thought the same thing. "Make the call, Colonel...but keep Osborn away from Herman," she replied. "I don't trust that man anywhere near a powerful artifact like the Darkhold."

"Ms. Marvel, after the boondoggle earlier tonight that nearly got everyone in this park slaughtered like penned-up sheep, Osborn damn well knows SHIELD's got itchy trigger fingers when it comes to him and ain't gonna need much of an excuse." He turned on his communicator, and barked his order. "Daniels! Tell Osborn...no. Tell Ares that we need him and the Thunderbolts up here by the reservoir! Dormammu's shown up and we...yes, you heard me! Osborn's going to hem and haw about wasting assets. Ares will come here looking for a fight and bring everyone else with him!"

"Why isn't he using magic?" I was watching Dormammu's punches barely missing the circling Avengers. "Seriously, this guy...shouldn't he be like, I don't know, frogs, plagues, rivers and seas boiling, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together?"

"It's probably why he needed the Grim Reaper to sacrifice live human beings instead of dead ones. He's not at peak power on this plane." I nodded, her answer making sense as she continued. "It's probably the only reason we have a shot at this. Dormammu at full power? You and I wouldn't be having this conversation, Herman."

"Look, I know I keep saying I'm out of my league and everything, but...I am out of my league. I couldn't even DENT this guy!" Thor was still pounding away...I think it was Thor, anyway. MACH-IV was holding Captain America, as the soldier was giving orders to the Avengers.

"Herman, you did your job. All you have to do now is keep that damn book safe and make sure Dormammu, or Electro if he wakes up, doesn't get his hands on it." She reached out and gave my shoulder a firm, reassuring squeeze. "When this is all over, you'll probably get a medal or something out of all of this."

"I appreciate your faith in beating up that thing," I replied.

"We're the Avengers, Herman. Only the military kicks more ass before 0800 than we do." She let go of my shoulder, and leaped into the air. "Just keep that damn book safe," she cried out before flying into the fray, hands glowing with white energy.

X

"That's not in my contract," Venom said as he looked up at the towering form of Dormammu. "I didn't sign on to fight aliens."

"That is no alien, Gargan." The pickup truck's shocks sighed in relief as Ares leaped out of the cargo area. "That's Dormammu, a demon from another dimension. He came through that red gateway behind him. It's our duty to send him back."

"Alien, demon, what the hell are we supposed to do against that thing?" A thick black-arm pointed up at the ball of fire that made up Dormammu's face.

"He's got a human's being form." The sullen Japanese kid from earlier pulled himself out of the passenger side window, slithering up to the roof and standing on top, looking at the demon. "That means he's vulnerable. He has a weakness of some sort."

"Fantastic." Bullseye smirked as he climbed out of the driver's side. "Find me a hamstring," he said as he pulled a long, wicked sword from off his back, "and I'll cut that bastard down to size. He's magic? Well, so am I."

"Where's your boss," Nick Fury asked the flying form of Moonstone. The blonde in the skin-tight outfit hovered over the pick-up truck that had brought the Thunderbolts here, sizing up the situation as Fury called out to her.

"He's back at the command trailer," she replied. "We're going to need more reinforcements, and he wants to be on deck to help coordinate them."

"Command trailer? We need him and that candy-striped power armor of his down HERE! Does he think a couple extra plasma rifles are going to do anything against that?" Fury slammed his hands down on the hood of the truck. "Damn it, Osborn! What the hell are you playing at?"

"Ares," Moonstone said over Fury's rising ride of frustration. "Dakken and Bullseye should work on the hamstring idea. If they can hobble him, it'll be easier to get him off his feet so the non-fliers can work him over."

Ares rubbed his chin, studying the demon, and nodded once. "Dakken, Bullseye. If you can cripple Dormammu, do so."

Bullseye grinned under his mask. "Never got to kill a god before. This should be fun." The Japanese boy, Dakken, hopped off the pick-up truck's roof. The two of them passed by me, the grin still plastered on Bullseye's face, as he and Dakken took the long way around towards Dormammu's heels.

"Want me to go with them?" Venom was crouched on the ground, muscles bulging under the sheer black skin of the symbiote he shared his body with.

"No. You've seen 'Empire Strikes Back,' Gargan. If he starts to waver, you wrap up his legs like one of those snow walkers and yank him over." Moonstone gave Venom a harsh smirk. "And make sure we're out of the way when he tips over."

"Got it."

"I guess I just stand here and look pretty, huh," I commented. Aside from the smirk Bullseye had given me as he walked by, the Thunderbolts hadn't even noticed us as they set about their task. Ares held his massive axe in one hand, studying Dormammu with a critical eye, while Venom was motionless, save for his tongue slowly moving over his sharp teeth.

"Well, Herman, you can just stand there," Moonstone shot back, without even sending a glance in my direction. "The big boys are here now to save the day."

"Oh? Then I guess my feeling of nervousness in my gut's really just relief, huh?"

"We're not stupid like the Avengers, Herman," Venom hissed behind me. "We like to plan things out."

"Great. You have a plan, the Avengers have a plan, the Grim Reaper had a plan! I was always the guy with the plans! Everyone's ripping me off!"

That earned a chuckle from the former Scorpion. "True, too true. You know, Herman, with the zombie apocalypse killing off about half the planet, I'm sure there are jobs open in the Thunderbolts..."

"Don't even joke about that, Mac," I growled, the Darkhold shifting in my arms as I felt a bit of anger.

"Don't antagonize Herman Schultz, Gargan." Ares had stepped forward, coming between me and the symbiote. "This man has done more to help humanity than you have in the past week. He's earned our respect. Go help Dakken and Bullseye. Now."

"I was just kidding around," Venom groused as he bounded away, leaping across the ground on all fours towards where the two men were already, from a safe distance, trying to find a weak point in Dormammu's heel or calf.

So there I was, standing next to the God of War. He was staring up at Dormammu, much like I was, watching the battle flaring around him. "How long have they been fighting, Herman," he asked me.

"Ten, maybe fifteen minutes." I watched as MACH-IV shot a barrage of missiles as Dormammu's face, only for the projectiles to vaporize in the fiery aura surrounding him. "I can't tell if they're even putting a dent in him."

"Dormammu is biding his time," Ares replied. "He is slowly building up his reservoir of magical power. Eventually, he will begin to unleash the magic he has learned over the course of eternity. And not even the mighty Avengers will be able to stand up to that. From there, it will be a matter of time before he raises the dead again, and the cycle of undeath will continue until the whole plane has been devoured."

He said it so matter-of-factly, speaking with thousands of years of history under his belt. I could only try not to gulp. "Then what the hell are we going to do, Ares?"

"Without Doctor Strange? We fight." Ares hefted his war axe. "That is all there is left to do. Fight and hope for a miracle. Moonstone. I wish to bury my axe into his head."

"Sounds good to me, Ares. Hang on." Moonstone swooped down behind Ares, and wrapped her arms around his thick waist. They took off, yellow energy trailing after her as she carried the massive Ares into the air. Moonstone was on a direct course for Dormammu's face, Ares gripping his war axe with both hands, already lining up a solid...

The leather-gloved hand pimp-slapped Moonstone before she cleared Dormammu's waist. "WOMAN, PLEASE. DO YOU THINK I FAILED TO NOTICE YOU?"

The pair went flying to one side, Moonstone spinning out of control. Ares went flying as well, Moonstone's grip on him coming undone from the impact. She quickly recovered from her spin, though, and swooped down to grab Ares as he passed Dormammu's knee. "Bastard hits like a freight train," she told Ares as she held him with both arms again.

"Aye," a voice called from above. "And in every moment that passes, his strength upon this material plane grows." Thor lowered himself to face the two Thunderbolts, sweat covering his skin. "Moonstone. Ares. What brings you here?"

"We are here to defeat Dormammu," Ares replied. "And your Avengers are in a perfect position to assist us, God of Thunder." I couldn't believe he said that line with a straight face.

Thor's smile in response was small and tight. "The Avengers could use your assistance, God of War."

"We have several guys trying to trip him up," Moonstone said, pointing down to the heel of Dormammu's foot. "If we can knock him down..."

"Aye. Ares, you should assist on the ground. I will take command up high." Before Ares could reply, Thor shot off, heading towards the head. Ares simply motioned for Moonstone to take him down to the ground, swinging behind the demon.

"THE HIGH/LOW TRICK? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM? I AM DORMAMMU! THE DREAD LORD!" He suddenly kicked backwards, and the Thunderbolts went sprawling, leaping out of the way as he tried to drive his foot into them. "I SEE THE AVENGERS HAVE FOUND NEW RECRUITS! COME, THEN! WHEN THE TIMES COMES, YOUR SACRIFICES WILL GRANT ME THE POWER TO FINISH DEVOURING THE WORLD!"

It was like watching your favorite football team lose, and coming from a Jets fan, that's saying something. One kick just scattered a whole bunch of supers, and from what I could tell, the other group wasn't faring any better. I hadn't seen Electro own the Avengers, and in the end, that had turned out to be nothing more than a fluke victory on his part. This time out...Dormammu wasn't beating the Avengers. He was toying with them. And if Ares and Thor were right, and he was just waiting for his recharge to unleash his magic...

"We're so screwed, Herman," I said to myself."

"Did someone say 'bowling a perfect game?'"

The high pitched voice caught me and the SHIELD soldiers off guard. They had their plasma rifles spun around and aimed at the red-and-black figure before I could even react. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, guns," Deadpool squealed as he raised his hands into the air. "Ms. Marvel makes a Simpsons quote, and everyone loves it! Deadpool makes one, and everyone pulls a gun! Unless you pulled them because Deadpool is talking in the third person. Say the word, and Deadpool will stop."

"Guys, guys! It's cool," I said, waving my arms at the SHIELD soldiers. "It's cool, he's on our side. I think."

"Mr. Schultz," one of the soldiers replied, "Wade Wilson is one of the most dangerous men on the planet. Keeping weapons trained on him at all times is SHIELD protocol."

"It's ok, Herman. I just wanted to make sure they were following protocol, and not aiming those things at me for my poor choice of words." Slowly, Deadpool lowered his hands, and stepped forward. "So, this is the dramatically appropriate time for me to arrive, right Herman?"

"I...guess so?" Staring at him with what I was sure was a look of utter confusion, I pointed up to Dormammu. "If you have something...dramatically appropriate...that will put Dormammu down, then I'll go so far as being damn glad to see you."

"Sorry, Herman," Deadpool replied. "Not even the biggest weapon I got would scratch Flamebrain's paint job. However, I have something much, much better." He reached down into one of the pouches on his belt and began to rummage around. "Now, where the hell did Deadp...I mean, where did I put it..."

"Hey," I asked as he looked for something in the pouch, "wasn't the Trapster with you? You're coming from the south end of the park, right?"

"He's still down there," the mercenary replied. "You think he's going to be dumb enough to come up here and deal with this?"

"Makes him the smart one. I can't believe we're tangling with this guy either..."

"I meant you, Herman," Deadpool corrected. "Seriously, after the one-punch beating you gave him earlier, he's not coming anywhere near you. He's afraid you're going to kill him." I could only shrug as he gave a small cry of triumph. "Ah ha! I have here in this bottle, Herman, the cure for all your ills." Deadpool pulled his hand out of his pouch, and held up a small glass vial with a black rubber stopper. Inside the vial, a bright blue liquid gently glowed as it gently swirled at the bottom.

"What the hell is that?"

"It ain't Nuka-Cola, Herman. This right here is exactly what you asked for right before I showed up and saved this tale from a horrible death." He gently tapped the vial with a gloved finger. "You know what's in here, Herman? Plasma. You know what makes up plasma? Molecules. Now instead of just flat out telling you what that means, why don't we let your vaunt..."

"Molecules! Molecule Man!" I snapped my fingers and damned near almost hugged this man. "What is it? Anti-matter? No, that'd eat through the vial. Some kind of high explosive?" After a second, it dawned on me, the light bulb clicking in my head. "Is that...that's Molecule Man himself, isn't it?"

"Just a small part of him," Deadpool replied. "We couldn't fit all of him in the vial. I wanted to try, but Owen kept saying no."

"So if that's him...no. That's a part of him. That's something that ties back to him. Something that ties all the way back to...Denver?" I nodded to myself, quickly getting it. "That's a conduit, isn't it?

"And the man gets a cigar! See me after the epilogue, I'll hook you up." Deadpool popped the stopper out with one finger. "It's radioactive, just a bit, so he can home in on it. Molecule Man made his own tracking beacon when you called him. He just needed a volunteer to run it through hyperspace and bring it back to New York, and I figured, hell, I've never been to hyperspace, even though I played 'Defender' like a champ back in the day. He just needed, oh...how much time did he need..."

An airy musical sound came from Deadpool's belt.

"...I think he needed about this much time." He pulled an iPhone out of the same pouch he had been digging around in for the vial. "Hey, Owen! Glad to hear your voice. You ready to get this show on the road? Uh huh? Well, that's just ducky, because I got the Shocker here and he's staring at me like someone's giving him the business. Uh huh. See you real soon!"

He slid the phone back into his belt, and flashed me a big thumbs up. "You're gonna love this, Herman. It's gonna involve some really cool looking special effects. Tom Savini, eat someone else's heart out!"

Deadpool was humming "The Final Countdown" by Europe as he tipped the vial over. "Duh na na na...na na na na...duh na na na...duh duh duh duh duh na..." The blue plasma slipped from the bottle. It fell through the air like melting ice cream and landed on the grass at our feet. We all took a step back, myself, Deadpool, and the two SHIELD soldiers as the plasma proceeded to just...lie there in a lump.

"Huh," Deadpool said. "You'd think it'd be more...sciencey."

"Give it time," I said. You had to give science a few moments. "Just...give it time."

Slowly, like a watched pot finally starting to boil, the plasma shifted. It stretched into the air, like a snake being charmed by a flute player. Fascinated, I stared as the plasma pulled itself off the ground, rising like a hoverboard. It curled upon itself, swirling down into a tight little ball as it reached eye level. It shone bright, blue lights with white striping as it began to spin in a clockwise manner.

"Guys," I said, "this is where we stand the hell back." The sounds of the Avengers and the Thunderbolts battling Dormammu behind us were in the back of our minds as we all carefully stepped away from the swirling ball. It started to spin, quickly reaching a rapid speed, turning on its axis like a generator wheel.

Then reality got a hole in it.

My mind immediately tried to rationalize the sight in front of me as the swirling ball simply expanded like an instantly filled balloon. Blue and white were replaced by a huge field of black, white stars shimmering in the background. It was the counterpart to the red portal on the other side of Dormammu, but I'd rather step into the blackness of space than the blood red circle in a heartbeat.

Deadpool gave a low whistle. "Never saw it from this side," he said quietly, awe in his voice. Black shadows were moving towards the portal's exit, moving at a high rate of speed...and I couldn't have been happier to see any of them.

As soon as the first person went "boots dry" on the grass of Central Park, a voice boomed behind us. "WHAT? WHAT IS THIS? WHO OPENED A NEW RIP IN TIME AND SPACE?"

Molecule Man, his sand brown hair windblown by the trip through hyperspace, took a few steps forward. "I did, Dormammu," he called out towards the towering demigod as the rest of the forms poured out of the portal. "Anything magic can do, science can do. And anything science can do..." He waved his hand over his head in a large circle. "...I can do better!"

The portal snapped backwards for a second before zipping shut, leaving reality in its place. And reality consisted of about fifty pissed-off supervillains, all standing behind Molecule Man, spoiling for a fight.

"Well," Speed Demon said, the smuggest smirk humanly possible, etched under his red goggles, "look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?"

Hydro-Man's watery form gave a boastful reply. "Big damn heroes, Speed!"

"Ain't we just?" Speed Demon raised a hand in my direction. "Damn, Herman? I heard you were tangling with a big guy, but this takes the damn cake. Your talent for pissing people off is damn near cosmic-level!"

"Yes, James, I'm very proud," I shot back, a big grin on my face. Spread out behind Molecule Man were the most of the same villains that had crowded into my warehouse to help protect a whole bunch of civilians. Faces I had only seen hours ago filled me with joy and relief reserved for seeing long absent friends. Speed Demon and Hydro-Man were at the forefront, with Blizzard coming up to their side, and behind them...the muscular duo of Thunderball and Piledriver, all that was left of the Wrecking Crew...the snapping tentacles of Doctor Octopus...the Awesome Android cracking its knuckles, and next to him, the Mad Thinker in a hoverchair with a ridiculously looking over-engineered Tesla gun bolted to the front...and even a few new additions...the Wizard, hovering in mid-air in his purple power armor, and Whirlwind floating next to him, his lower body engulfed by a tornado...

"You came back," I said with awe. All of them. They had all come back. I had begged Molecule Man to send everyone back to help beat back the flood of zombies pouring into Central Park. And even with the zombie plague ended, they had come back.

"Well...yeah. You called. We answered," Hydro-Man replied. "Granted, we're really confused because someone said you were the Chameleon or the Chameleon was you...but Speed Demon said you called him, asking for help. So...we answered."

"Besides," Speed Demon said, still grinning a bit, "we heard you were the one who killed all the damn zombies. So...we all owe you one. Playing hero should square the damn bill, Herman, right?"

"HEROES? HONESTLY?" Dormammu's mocking laughter boomed across the night sky. "ALL OF YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN LAUGHING STOCKS, HIGH END PEASANTS AT BEST! NONE OF YOU ARE WORTHY TO BE OF NOTICE TO MY TIME!"

"Damn," Aqueduct remarked, his head craned back to stare up at the form of Dormammu said. The tank on the back of the hydromancer bubbled slightly, filled with high pressure water. "I think the big evil guy with his face on fire just said we're not worthy of his time."

"You're right," Blizzard replied. "You think we should listen to him and just go home?"

After a few seconds, Aqueduct shook his head. "Nah. I didn't get yanked through hyperspace to not get in my pound of flesh against the guy who tried to kill the entire world. Ice fist to the balls?"

"Ice fist to the balls." And the two of them rushed forward, Blizzard making an ice slide while Aqueduct flew into the air, propelled by jets of water shooting from his hands. That was the kick-off, as the rest of the villains went after them. They rushed past where I stood, and I had to spin to watch them file past, sprinting at Dormammu.

"Fliers, go high, and assist the Avengers! Everyone else, to the rear! Assist whoever is back there! Get this abomination off his feet!" The Wizard, taking charge, pointed towards Dormammu as the fliers streamed past. "You do not come to the Wizard's planet and try to destroy it!"

"It's because of you, my sister's dead!" Machete, his trademark weapons held in both hands, held them into the air. "I will see you burn in hell, foul creature!"

"You mess with one of us," Cottonmouth yelled, his adamantium jaw unhinged, "you mess with all of us!"

The silent sound of a sword being drawn was audible as the last of the bad guys charged Dormammu. "For pony," Deadpool whispered before, with a loud battle cry, he threw himself at Dormammu, infringing heavily on a registered trademark in the process.

"FOR POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONY!"

X

You're going to think I'm cheating here.

There's no way I can do this fight justice.

Close your eyes for a minute and imagine almost seventy super-powered beings in action. Lasers sizzling through the air, the sound of hammers and axes banging off of magical armor, ice and fire raining from the sky, and the voices of Captain America, Ares, and the Wizard barking out orders, trying to control the chaotic scene that's going on around them and barely succeeding. Speed Demon running a thick cable around Dormammu's legs, and Venom plucking the wild cable out of mid-air when it snaps. The Wizard and MACH-IV, side by side as they try to blast a weak point somewhere in Dormammu's armor. Constrictor and Ares trying to find purchase to lift Dormammu's foot and gain some leverage.

And I'm not even coming close to describing everything that's gone on around me. The Avengers, the Thunderbolts, and an army of supervillains...all working together because my dumb ass decided, on an impulse, to pull three civilians out of a 7-11 and someone put it up on YouTube for the entire world to see. A week ago, everyone here would have been at each others throats, and now, all those differences had been put aside.

No words could describe it. Michael Bay and James Cameron couldn't put it on screen with an unlimited budget. All you can do is close your eyes and try to imagine it. Or look for someone's jumpy cell phone footage on YouTube

Besides, I'm not the best one to describe the melee anyway. Because I was the one standing on the sidelines watching the entire time.

X

"I feel so useless," I muttered as I watched the entire fight from about 200 feet away.

"Ms. Marvel ordered you to protect the Darkhold," one of the SHIELD soldiers responded. "And Colonel Fury ordered us to protect you. This is as close as we're going to allow you to get."

"Yeah, yeah..." He was absolutely right, of course. The last thing we need was Dormammu getting his hands on a book of dark magic. He hadn't come for it, though, ever since Electro got knocked out by Ms. Marvel. He was too busy dealing with the swarm of superheroes and supervillains around him. Dormammu staggered, and he cursed, but he was still standing. Were the heroes just a distraction? Were they actually getting to him? Or was he just toying with them, biding his time until his powers came back? His attacks were getting a lot closer to the fliers, and his stomps on the ground at the people trying to knock him off his feet were carrying a lot more impact. Some of the most powerful beings on the planet...and it wasn't enough.

Fury had said that the Sentry and the Fantastic Four were inbound, but there was no way we could count on them arriving in time. This was the final stand, 35-32 :03 seconds left in the fourth quarter, and the opposing team was first-and-goal on the 2-yard line. We, all of us, had fought hard to save this world, defending the helpless from the living dead, and now, was there a shot in hell left at actually winning? Actually making it all worth while?

You bet your ass there was. Ms. Marvel said it just moments before. "We don't know the meaning of the word defeat," I said quietly. Alright, Herman. It's time for just one more plan. And the objective is simple. Beat Dormammu somehow. If the combined forces currently tearing into him couldn't bring him down, then there was only one person who could stop him.

Doctor Strange.

Who was lost somewhere in the magical ether of the red portal behind Dormammu.

Ok, options, options. Really, the only one was going through the portal and looking for him, but...it'd be like going to Newark. You have no clue where you're going and will probably end up shanked and robbed, and spending my final hours bleeding out in a mystical dimension ranks just below getting eaten alive by zombies.

I didn't have a choice, though, did I? We needed Doctor Strange. We needed someone who could take on Dormammu, someone who didn't lose...

...

...

...someone who never lost. Ever. Ever.

Oh, crap. Damn it. Even now, after everything I've done, he still keeps popping up. The one guy who never, ever, ever loses. The guy who's ass you could kick and he'd still come at you with a smirk and a stupid quip. I don't think I've ever hated, really hated, anyone more than this person (with, of course, the recent exception of Norman Osborn), but, when push comes to shove...he's the man. The problem was, in order to get to him, I need to talk to a third guy, who was currently the number two guy on my 'most pissed off' list. All we need is Electro back on his feet and Stephanie Torrano, who blew me off at the Senior Prom, and I'd be depending on the top five people I currently hate the most to help defeat Dormammu...

"Hey," I told one of the SHIELD soldiers standing next to me, "I need a favor. I have an idea."

He turned to look at me, his face hidden under the tinted visor of his helmet. "You have an idea? What can I do to help, Mr. Schultz?"

Mister Schultz...still sounds kind of nice. "I need you to make a call and get someone on the line for me. Not on the hands-free stuff inside your helmet, but on your actual communicator. I need you to get someone on the line and then hand the phone over to me. If I try to call him, he's not going to want to talk to me."

"Sure," the soldier responded. He unclasped a small device from his shoulder, barely bigger than an iPod Nano. "I can try. Who do you need?"

Deep breath. "I need you to get in touch with Peter Petruski. He should be in the south end of the park with the rest of the refugees."

"The Trapster?" The soldier flipped his visor up. He couldn't have been old enough to drink as he stared at me in confusion. "What do you want him for? Scuttlebutt says he tried to kill you and you decked him when you caught up with him."

"Yeah," I said as, overhead, Moonstone hammer-swung Wonder Man towards Dormammu. "We're not on speaking terms right now. Which is why the universe is screwing with me and making him so damn important."

"Wow. The universe must NOT like you, Mr. Schultz." He flipped open the communicator. "Command, Corporal Sonby here. I need you to patch me through to Peter Petruski's government communicator. Priority One. Yeah, I'm being serious. Priority One."

After a few seconds, a series of beeps, like a fax machine making a connection, came from the device. Just afterward, a familiar voice responded. "Petruski here."

"Petruski, Corporal Sonby. Wait one." The soldier handed the communicator over to me, placing it in my outstretched hand.

"Peter," I said, "it's Herman. I need your help."

Silence from the other end. No surprise. "Pete, I'm being serious. I'm standing here watching the Avengers and the Thunderbolts and pretty much everyone you and I ever drank with or had a beer with throwing themselves as a guy calling himself the Dread Lord and actually living up to the name. I have a plan, but I need your help. No joke."

More silence. I let go of the talk button to let out an exasperated sigh before diving right back in. "Come on, Pete...please. I know you're there, man."

"What the hell do you want, Herman," his voice shot back from the other end. "You broke my damn jaw!"

"Norman Osborn had you try to kill me, Pete!"

"And he tried to have you kill me a couple of years ago! Why the hell do you think I was so pissed at you!"

"Look, look, Pete...if you want to argue about this later on, we can, alright? Hell, I'll even buy the damn beer! But right now, Pete...I know you're tight with Osborn. I don't care. I need your help."

The quiet almost made me jump out of my skin. The sounds of the huge battle behind me paled in comparison to the lack of noise. "Come on, Pete," I said quietly. "You know I wouldn't be calling you right now after all that's happened if I didn't need your help."

"...you're going to owe me, Herman," he finally said. "I'm talking the big bucks."

"Fine, great," I said in relief, "whatever you want. Look, I just have one question, and I know you can answer it. What did Osborn do with Spider-Man?"

"...Spider-Man? What the hell do you want him for?"

"Because," I told him, "he's fought Dormammu before, and that lucky bastard always figures out a way to freaking' win. Maybe he knows something the rest of us don't. Right now, the Avengers and Osborn's team need every single advantage they can get their hands on."

"Ok..." Trapster replied. "So then why the hell are you calling me, Herman? I haven't seen him."

"Come on, Pete. Don't lie to me now. I'm being serious here."

"Screw you," he spat at me over the airwaves. "Why the hell would you think I had something to do with Spider-Man disappearing? I haven't seen him since yesterday morning when he went out on zombie patrol!"

"Oh, just cut the crap," I shot back. "The last time I saw Spider-Man and Boomerang, they were coming into Central Park over the wall down by 59th Street. Nick Fury said they never showed up. If Spider-Man's missing, I'm willing to bet your boss had something to do with it." Boomerang. I had completely forgotten about him. What the hell kind of friend was I? "So tell me where Osborn shoved Spider-Man and Boomerang, and I'll forget you tried to kill me. We'll be even and square."

"Herman, I don't know what the hell you're babbling about," Trapster replied. "I've been with Osborn all damn day, and I never saw or heard anything about Spider-Man or Fred. And I'm telling the damn truth."

"Damn it! Come on, man, you have to seen or heard something. This is...we need Spider-Man's help, Pete, or else..."

"I got nothing, Herman. As far as I know, Osborn had nothing to do with Spider-Man's disappearance. Now, get off the damn line, I'm risking my ass and actually trying to keep a bunch of civilians in order." A loud beep indicated communications had been cut off.

"Damn it," I swore, shoving the communicator back at Corporal Sonby. Either Pete was lying, in which case I couldn't do a damn thing about it, or Pete was telling the truth, in which case, I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Osborn had to have Spider-Man, and Boomerang as well. Why the hell else would the wall-crawler and Fred up and vanish? They had made it into the park, and I don't think any goons on Osborn's payroll could have stopped those two from making it back to the refugee camp and alerting everyone else about the Grim Reaper's attack. So what the hell happened? Did some kind of invisible hand just come out nowhere and snatch...

...them away...like Dormammu had done with Doctor Strange earlier?

Electro warns the Grim Reaper's something that myself, the Punisher, Boomerang, and Spider-Man knows what's going on. The Punisher goes after Black Talon. That had to be enough warning for the Reaper to set some kind of trap, snag Spider-Man and Boomerang and tuck them away somewhere, before they could warn everyone and Doctor Strange shuts down making that portal that let the Grim Reaper's crew sneak into Central Park and gave Dormammu an opening to force his way through. And if he's snagged Spider-Man and Boomerang and then snagged Doctor Strange, odds are he's thrown them all into the same jail cell or prison, right?

It was flimsy. Damn flimsy. But if anyone out there had a better, more thought out line of logic...well, too late now, ain't it?

Of course, they probably weren't even ON this planet anymore. We need to get them back here somehow, but how? They were lost in some mystical dimension or trapped in spell-locked room or something magical along those lines...

...it's official. I hate my train of thought sometimes. First, I realized that I need the one guy on this planet I hate the most to help beat Dormammu. Second, I realized that that person, along with another person who could help AND one of my closest friends, if not the closest friend now that Aleksei was gone, were trapped somewhere beyond my ability to help them. Third, and worst of all, it turns out I did have the ability to help them. I was holding it in my hands at that very moment.

For someone's as smart as I am, I end doing some very, very, VERY stupid things on nothing more than pure impulse now and again. See the chain of events that brought me to this damn point. But hell, it's worked out so far, ain't it?

"Um...Mr. Schultz?"

"Just keep me covered," I told the confused Corporal Sonby as I sat down on the ground. "My plan didn't quite work out the way I had hoped, so I'm falling back on Plan B."

"What's Plan B?"

"I have no freaking' clue," I answered honestly. "'B' probably stands for 'Book of Magic Boning Me In the Ass.'" I set the closed Darkhold on my lap, and rolled my neck. I wasn't stretching, it just felt like a neck-rolling moment.

"I'm going to hate myself in the morning...if I'm still alive...but you and me have to have another talk."

Silence from the book.

_I know you're in there. Don't get mad at me just because I didn't fall for your temptation. It was a nice try. A week ago, I probably would have given in. You just caught me during a time of self-assurance and optimism. It's not you. It's me._

_...is your humor always so horrid..._

_I'm ain't known for my jokes. Like I said, you and me need to talk._

_...we have nothing to say to you, Herman...you threw a change at glory and prestige away, and made a mockery of our powers, of the gift we offered you..._

_Come on, man...don't be pissy like that. You made me an offer, and I ran with it. I just ran in a different direction than you want me to. I can't be the first person to trick you like..._

_...you did not trick us! You exploited us! A small-minded creature such yourself could never trick us!_

I wasn't going to argue with the tricky book of black magic. _You're right. I just got lucky. I found a loophole and walked right through it, like a hacker exploiting a computer bug. There's no way a putz like me could ever get one up on you._

_...this is true...you are what you would refer to as an end user...you are the catalyst, and we are the ones who cast the spells...the living dead possess more raw magical talent then you do, Herman Schultz...you are clever, but in the end, you simply push the trigger..._

_Yeah, well, magic ain't my thing. But right now, we're still bound together. That's right, isn't it?_

_...yes...your blood still stains our pages...you are still our master..._

_And I take it you ain't too enthused by that turn of events. You wanted blood, and I didn't give it to you, but now you're stuck with me_

_...being in your hands is like being a paintbrush in the hands of a deaf, dumb, and blind person..._

_Ok, then...thanks for the vote of confidence. Well, then, I have a deal for you. I don't exactly want to be bound to you either. I'm a little bit science, you're a whole lot of magic, and those two don't mix. You help me do one thing, and I'll release you from any and all ties and obligations the two of us made._

_...why would you do this...you would be giving away incredible power..._

_Because I'm not an incredible power kind of guy. I got my vibro-smashers, and that's all I'll ever need. You're too much of a temptation for me to have around."

_...you could just lock me away..._

_Man, you're an evil book of magic. You'll find a way to escape, and then I'm screwed. No, it's real easy. You help me do one thing, and we're square. You go your way, and I'll go mine._

_...what is it you wish for me to do..._

_Summon Fred Myers, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man to me._

_...you wish to bring them here..._

_Yeah. One's a friend and the other two will help me stop Dormammu. And don't think Dormammu's going to treat you kindly, he sent Electro after you, and once that plan fell apart, he's spending more time fighting the Avengers and everyone else than just reaching down here and snatching you from my hands. You bring them back here, they help get rid of Dormammu, and then you're free and clear to find some other sap to treat and tempt._

_...difficult...they are on the other side of that portal...but limbo is vast...hard to pin down..._

_Wait. How the hell did you know that?_

_...friendship binds you to the one you call Boomerang...hope binds to the one called Doctor Strange...hate binds you to the one you call Spider-Man...you are the beacon...you are the lighthouse...but they are far away, Herman..._

_Can you bring them back?_

_...blood..._

_Oh, not this again. Come on._

_...drops...three drops...one for each...can be done...not to bind us...but to fuel the ritual..._

_Damn it...alright. Alright. You bring them back here, safe and sound, and in one piece...no tricks, no bringing back their bodies and stranding their minds...I want them back like they left._

_...be warned...you must open me to the proper page...once I am open, Dormammu will feel the flow of magic...he will try to stop you..._

_Yeah...well...they better keep him off of me, then._

I opened the cut again on my forehead. It took a while longer, as it had begun to heal slightly under the scab, but I felt the warmth pooling in the wound. I leaned forward, pushing on the skin with my finger. The first two drops sunk into the profane cover, while the third, when it hit, flowed up the front of the book like it was rolling downhill towards the center.

_...open me, Herman...and I shall hold up my end of the bargain..._

As soon as I cracked the Darkhold open, I could feel Dormammu's gaze immediately, intense heat focusing on the back of my lowered head like a laser beam.

"WHAT IS THIS? WHO HAS OPENED THE DARKHOLD?"

_Whatever you're going to do, do it quick._

_...I can not be rushed...they must be located..._

"SCHULTZ? HERMAN SCHULTZ? WHAT INSANITY IS THIS? YOU'RE NOT A SORCERER! YOU'RE NOT EVEN A STAGE MAGICIAN!" A booming footstep...and then another, this one closer to where I was sitting. "THE LAST ACT OF A DESPERATE MAN, BUT I KNOW ALL THE LEGENDS AND FABLES, HERMAN. IT'S INSECTS LIKE YOU THAT FATE CHOOSES TO BE THE HERO OF THE DAY."

A leather-like boot crashed down onto the ground next to me. I looked up from the mystic pages of the Darkhold to see an ankle...and a knee...and a thigh...

"SO, I'M GOING TO END YOUR STORY RIGHT NOW, HERMAN. NO ONE WILL STOP THE DREAD LORD FROM FEASTING UPON THIS PLANET! NO ONE!"

"Oh no! Ditch," Corporal Sonby cried as Dormammu dropped to one knee, ignoring the beams of light the Living Laser was pouring into the fireball that was his head. The ground shook at Dormammu steadied himself and raised his huge hand into the air. Sonby and the other SHIELD soldier dove out of the way as the hand pushed through the air like Dormammu was trying to smash a fly. I didn't even have time to try to get to my feet, barely able to shift to one side as the palm of his hand descended towards me to flatten me into the ground and the first parts of my childhood flashed before my eyes...

Crunch.

Visions of beating up Timmy Schneider when I was seven dropped away as a stone pillar erupted from the earth in front of me. It rose into the air, the top of the pillar falling away as it turned into three fingers stretching towards Dormammu's palm strike. As the Dread Lord was about twenty feet away from turning me into a strawberry cream cheese schmear, the fingers caught his wrist, quickly wrapping around it. The stone arm sunk back into the ground as it slowed Dormammu's attack, bringing it to a halt about ten feet above my exposed head.

"Don't just stand there," Molecule Man yelled out as he concentrated on gripping Dormammu's wrist, "somebody give me a hand here!"

Thor was the first to arrive, followed quickly by Wonder Man and Whirlwind, who created an updraft as the two Avengers pushed and shoved on Dormammu's wrist just above where the stone hand of Molecule Man was straining to keep me from being squished.

_...they are close, Herman..._

_Put that on hold, we're moving!_

_...if we move, the connection will be lost..._

_If we don't move, we're going to get squished._

_...if we don't move, you will be squished...we will simply be scuffed...the connection is growing stronger..._

"FOOLS! I HAVE ANOTHER HAND!" Yeah, thanks for the update, Dormammu. His other hand simply swept along the ground, skimming the grass as now he looked to simply smack me upside my spine and send me flying through the air. I found myself flashing back to Timmy Schneider again...

I was already bracing myself for the impact, leaning away, which would have been as effective as trying to catch a sword stroke with my bare hand, when Dormammu's hand suddenly stopped. And I mean exactly that. It just came to a screeching halt, no sound, no light, just halting. I swear, I could make out the individual seams in Dormammu's glove as it hung motionless in mid-air.

"WHAT? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?"

"No sorcery," a voice I had heard on TV time and time again call out in a taunting manner. "Just something fantastic."

Oh, thank God they showed up.

As the blonde with the look of concentration on her face kept both hands splayed towards Dormammu, the young man in the blue spandex leaped down from the silver aircar, a huge grin plastered all over his face. "Well look at this! Appears we got here just in the..."

"We already made that joke, flamebrain," Speed Demon called out as he zipped past the young man. "Get some new material!"

"What?" The grin quickly faded from his face. "You're kidding me! Come on, that joke was tailored made for our entrance!"

"Focus, Johnny," a gravelly voice answered. A huge orange rock, in the shape of a man, climbed out of the aircar. "No flame on, no clobbering time, no screwing around. Time to get serious."

"THE WORLD'S GREATEST HEROES!" Dormammu pulled his hand away from the invisible barrier that had halted it, before slamming it forward again. The blonde let out a grunt of effort as the hand came to a sudden halt again "SURELY THIS IS A SIGN OF MY EVENTUAL TRIUMPH IF YOU HAVE ARRIVED!"

From the other side, the stone pillar that was supporting the hand suddenly cracked. Molecule Man grunted as well as the cracks quickly mended themselves. "I never believed in my lifetime," he deadpanned, "that I would be so happy to herald the arrival of the Fantastic Four."

"The feeling is mutual, Owen." And that came from the world's smartest man as he stretched his way out of the aircar. "Sue, can you hold that barrier?"

"Not without help," Susan Storm told her husband, Reed Richards.

"Ben, help out Susan," Mr. Fantastic called out. He was already on his way, running towards me, the only time in my life I'd be happy to see the Thing coming my way. "Johnny, assist Molecule Man!"

"I can't believe it," the young man said, before his entire body burst into flames. "FLAME ON," he cried as he shot into the air towards the stone pillar.

"Now," Mr. Fantastic said as the Thing's hands braced the invisible wall that the Invisible Woman had put up, standing just scant feet behind me, and the Human Torch joined Wonder Man and Thor, "can someone explain to me what is going on?

"To put it in terms you would understand, Richards," the voice of the Wizard called, "this is Dormammu. He is magic's counterpart to Galactus, and he was the driving force behind the plague that swept the world."

"That much I know," Mr. Fantastic replied to his long-time foe.

"Then this is what you don't know," the Wizard shot back. "Herman Schultz is apparently doing something that Dormammu doesn't want him to do, and we're trying to stop him!"

"Herman Schultz? But...what could he possibly do to hurt Dormammu?"

"NOTHING, RICHARDS. BECAUSE I'M GOING TO KILL HERMAN SCHULTZ!" The stone pillar cracked again, and I heard the Thing grunt as he pushed back against the barrier, and I urged the Darkhold to hurry it up.

_Come on, come on! Do you really want to be squished into the ground?_

_...we are searching, Herman...patience..._

_We don't have time for patience!_

"CEASE YOUR MECHINATIONS, HERMAN! YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY DEFEAT ME," Dormammu called.

"If you're that worried, Dormammu, then that's all the more reason to let the Shocker do whatever it is he's doing! Wizard, I need you to get all the strong heroes over here! Don't let Dormammu crush Schultz!"

"It is only because the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, Richards, that I am entertaining one of your orders!" The Wizard flew off towards the back of Dormammu, where the heroes and villains who had been trying to help topple the Dread Lord when he was standing now mulled about, confused at what to do next. I could hear the Wizard begin to bark orders, and after a few seconds, the loud agreements of the group as they made their way towards where I was sitting on the ground, cross-legged.

Make no mistake, I was trying my best not to shake. Above me, several people were now adding their strength to Molecule Man's stone hand as it pinned one of Dormammu's hands in place. To one side, a rush of people streamed past, leaning against a wall no one could see, but kept Dormammu's hand from slamming into me and swatting me aside. And there I was, arguing with a book to go freaking' faster.

I didn't have time to be scared. I should have been in the State of Catatonia, because a god was actively trying to kill me, and a mix of villains I had worked with, villains I had fought with, and heroes who had arrested me were doing everything they could to keep me alive. The whole thing would have been surreal if it wasn't so damn terrifying. I hoped my therapist was alive after all was said and done, because I was going to crack open my personal stash of cash and offer her a whole bunch of money for thirty minutes on the couch. But that's the only time my mind wandered. No self-introspection, no monologuing, no worrying about my reputation or how over my head I was.

"YOU ONLY DELAY THE INVETIABLE! LET HERMAN SCHULTZ DIE, AND I MAY YET OFFER THIS PLANET A SWIFT DEATH!"

_Any luck?_

_...focus..._

_Focus? On what?_

_...focus on one of them...they are together...focus on one of them..._

I put a hand flat on the book. All around me, the sounds of chaotic battle, of straining muscles and laser blasts and screams and boasts and taunts, it all slowly faded away.

_...focus on one of them..._

_Which one of them?_

_...focus on one of them..._

Well, if I got squished while trying to do this, at least I probably wouldn't know it.

_Alright. How do I focus?_

_...think of one of them...of the emotions that tether you together..._

_Huh. Ain't really a person of emotion here._

_...you know not yourself, Herman Schultz...you plan, you plot, you do your best to balance your duals natures of being a criminal and being upstanding...one allows you to use me...the other allows you to save the world...emotion is a part of you...embrace it..._

_Embrace what? Hope for Doctor Strange? Hate for Spider-Man? Friendship for Boomerang?_

_...choose one...choose one..._

I made my choice.

_Fine. I choose hope._

_...hope is weak...hope is fleeting..._

_Hate would lead me down a dark path. Friendship went out the window the minute the Wizard took an order from Mr. Fantastic. Hope. That's what we all need right now. Hope that the one guy who can solve this problem can show up. Some of us hate. Some of us have friendship. We all have hope._

_...how sentimental..._

_Well, welcome to the human race. We're all about those thin slivers of hope. The hope of the big promotion, the hope that cute girl will talk to us, the hope that you can make that red light, and the hope that the Sorcerer Supreme's going to show up and save the damn day. Hope. That's what you got. Do it._

_...we can not wait to be free of you..._

_Mutual feelings here, pal. Sooner you get them back here, the sooner this all ends._

I closed my eyes. I had no clue if it helped.

_Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope._

_...that does not help us..._

_You said to focus on hope._

_...focus quietly_

Doctor Strange. Beating Dormammu. Saving the world. Bringing Fred back. Hell, even bringing Spider-Man back. Right now, the world needed heroes, even someone as annoying as him. Doctor Strange would bring them all back when he came back. He'd help defeat Dormammu and make the world safe again.

_shocker_

I felt an eyebrow raise in confusion. It wasn't the Darkhold's soft whispers that had spoken.

_...the tether has been made, Herman..._

_herman! herman!_

_Yeah...yeah! Yeah, it's Herman!_ The whisper were very faint, barely audible over the sounds of combat I was doing my best to regulate to the background. I had to focus completely on the quiet voice, ignoring the efforts of everyone else around me to keep me from getting crushed.

_herman! this is doctor strange! can you hear me?_

_Yeah! Oh, thank God...you're coming in really faint, though! Are Spider-Man and Boomerang there with you?_

_yes, but there's a lot of mystical static!_

_Hey, can you do something here? Increase the volume or cut down on the static?_

_...blood..._

_herman, who is the other voice? i can barely hear them._

_It's the Darkhold. Ms. Marvel and I got your last message and..._

_you found the darkhold? great! whatever you do, herman, do not give it any blood!_

_...um...too late..._

_what? what did you do, herman?_

_Look, we don't have a lot of time here, so let me explain...no, that'll take too long! Let me sum up! We got the Darkhold back from Baron Mordo and I gave it some of my blood to use it to stop the dead from coming back to life. And now, Dormammu's trying to squash me like a bug because I'm using the Darkhold to contact you and find a way to bring you back!_

_herman, you are not a magician! you have no reason to use that book! you are not trained for it!_

_Tell me something I don't know, Doctor!_

_herman, you have to listen to me, very very carefully. focus through the static and listen. first, do not give the darkhold anymore blood! you have already bonded yourself to the book as its master, and that is a very bad thing!_

_No more blood. On it._

_second, dormammu came through to our world. is he still near the portal that brought him there?_

_Yeah! I'd say...maybe two hundred feet away. The Avengers and a whole bunch of other supers are here fighting him._

_that is good. whoever is in charge, tell them to start trying to force dormammu towards the portal. we will change it from this end from an exit portal to an entrance portal. once dormammu is forced through, you, and only you, must throw the darkhold through the portal. that will seal the portal and deny dormammu and the darkhold entrance to this plane, and the threat should be ended once and for all._

_Ok...I think I got it._

_herman, it must be you who throws the book. this can not be stressed enough. the portal leads to a nexus of numerous dimensions and realities, constantly shifting and changing every instant. by banishing them from this plane separately, we can send them to different dimensions and make sure they never come in contact with each other again. you are the master of the darkhold for the moment, and you must be the one who severs the connection by willingly banishing him from this dimension, or else the darkhold will find its way back and act as a beacon to pull dormammu back. and if the darkhold is thrown first, dormammu can lock in upon it once he is pushed through the portal, and the combination of dormammu and the darkhold can be classified as a world-ender. and we've had enough of those this week._

_Yeah. Ok. No pressure. Got it._

_herman. can you do this?_

_We don't have a choice, do we? We can do it, Doctor Strange. We can end this and get these two things off our planet._

_good. you will know when the portal shifts. dormammu must go first, and then the darkhold. and you must be the one who throws it. i can not stress this enough, herman._

_Just handle your end, Doctor Strange. And make sure to save something to bring you three home. Fred still owes me for all the damn beer he drank._

I snapped the Darkhold shut, instantly severing the connection. The sounds of combat immediately slammed into me again. To one side, I could hear the gravelly voices of the Thing and Ares as they urged everyone to keep the Invisible Woman's barrier upright. On the other side, up in the air, Thor, Wonder Man, and several other heroes had their back under the stone hand that was keeping Dormammu pinned in place.

"YOUR EFFORTS, HERMAN, ARE IN VEIN!" The Dread Lord pulled his hand away, and in standing on his feet, ripped the stone hand from the ground. "THE TIME IS RIPE," he called out as the bits of rock fell back down to the Earth. "MY POWERS HAVE ALMOST RETURNED! NOTHING ANY OF YOU CRETINS CAN DO WILL MATTER! YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST!" Standing up and brushing the dirt from the back of my legs, I watched as Dormammu raised his hands up to the sky. Bolts of crimson fire began to gather in his hands as he cried out. "THIS WORLD, AND ALL UPON IT, BELONG TO DORMAMMU!"

"Ok, everyone," I called out, my voice holding more confidence than the situation called for, "Dormammu's got it all wrong. He's about to lose, and lose hard."

"OH, REALLY?" His gaze fell upon me again. "HUMOR ME, HERMAN, SINCE, FROM WHAT I'VE GATHERED, YOU'RE THIS WORLD'S EXPERT ON LOSING."

Being called a loser by a god...turns out, it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would have. "Guess who I just had a long talk with," I said, telling Dormammu and making sure the heroes gathered around me heard my words. "Doctor Strange. And he told me exactly how to beat you."

It took a second for Dormammu to respond. "HAH! DOCTOR STRANGE," he finally said, "ISN'T ON THIS PLANE ANYMORE! THERE IS NOTHING HE CAN DO TO INFLUENCE CURRENT EVENTS!"

"Sorry," I said. Here I was, arguing with a god like I was arguing with Spider-Man in the middle of a heist, and it didn't feel weird at all. "You're wrong. Absolutely wrong."

"NAME ONE THING. NAME ONE THING DOCTOR STRANGE CAN DO TO STOP MY CONQUEST AND CONSUMPTION OF THIS WORLD!"

"Well, for starters, that portal behind you is about to go from 'blow' to 'suck.'"

I've said it before, and I said it again. It's really the little things that make life worth living. And seeing a god's face take on that perfect "oh, crap" look?

"NO...NO! I WILL NOT BE DENIED! I WILL..."

The changed happened so suddenly, if it wasn't for the silver chains erupting from the portal, I wouldn't have noticed it for at least a couple of seconds. The links of magical energy wrapped around Dormammu's waist, sliding around each other to forge a tight bond. Immediately, his hands dropped down to his waist. "UNLEASH ME, YOU..."

He staggered back. Just a few feet. Towards the silver portal. Before, the magical doorway had been a blood red, and tendrils had waved out of its edges. It was how the Grim Reaper, and later Dormammu, had forced their way into Central Park. Now, the portal was a bright, shining silver, and the tendrils were on the inner side of the portal now, flapping harshly as the portal slowly turned into a vacuum cleaner, aiming to suck Dormammu the hell off this planet.

"NO, STRANGE! I WILL NOT BE DENIED MY FINAL VICTORY! NOT EVEN THE CHAINS OF OSHTUR WILL BIND ME..."

The God of Thunder slammed into Dormammu's chest, Mjolnir leading the way. "We will drive you from this world, Dread Lord, and you will know that this planet is defended!"

"AWAY, VERMIN!" Dormammu smacked as Thor, his fist tinged with red lightning, but Thor managed to swoop away. "I WILL..."

It was the Wizard who followed up, the beams from his Wonder Gloves tearing into Dormammu's torso. "Your magic is not welcome here, demon! Science will defeat you!" The chains tightened as the beams hit Dormammu, and he staggered backwards again.

"Do not stand fast!" Ares, his battle axe in hand, charged forward, taking the lead as his voice boomed across the park. "Hit this creature with every ounce of strength in your beings, drive him through that portal, and bind him from this very world!"

"You heard the man, people!" Right on Ares' heels, that was Captain America, who was keeping right up with the God of War. "Doctor Strange gave us the tools, let's finish the job!"

It wasn't Ares or Captain American who got to Dormammu first, however. A high pressure jet of water shot between them, smacking into Dormammu's ankle as the chains yanked on him again. "Come on, you sons of bitches," Hydro-Man screamed out, "do you want to live forever?"

"First Speed Demon, then freaking' Hydro-Man stole my lines! At this rate," the Human Torch said as he scorched overhead, "I'm going to be reduced to crying out..."

"By your powers combined," the voice of Deadpool cried as he leveled his assault rifle at Dormammu, "I am CAPTAIN PLANET!"

"Son of a bitch," the Human Torch cried before he laid into the Dread Lord.

The chains were tight around his waist, a straight line of shaking links reaching back to the portal. Dormammu's hands yanked and pulled at the chains as everyone poured everything that had into him, shoving at his feet, blasting his chest, and doing every single thing they could to push him back towards the waiting portal. "UNHAND ME," Dormammu cried loudly. "THIS CAN NOT STAND!"

"Herman!" I turned my head to see Mr. Fantastic standing next to me. I was keeping my ass well away from Dormammu, just in case the bastard got the power to start blasting everyone in sight. "What happens once Dormammu gets pushed through the portal?"

"According to Doctor Strange," I shouted back, "I throw this book through the portal after him, and the portal slams shut, and that's all she wrote for the zombie plague! But we gotta get Dormammu through first!"

"UGH!" Dormammu, with a grunt of effort, snapped the chains around his waist. The broken links fell to the side as he flexed his hands. "AND NOW, YOU MISERABLE..."

The chains snapped back into the air. The links shot in front of Dormammu, and the broken metals reforged itself, forming the complete chain again. This time, though, Dormammu caught the chain as it tried to wrap itself around him, catching it at chest level. His massive arms flexed as he strained to free himself.

"We have this! Come on, just keeping pouring it on!" Ms. Marvel was double fisting, beams from both hands carving across Dormammu's wrist to try and break his grip on the silver chains. Everyone was working together. Iron Man and the Living Laser. Speed Demon and Joystick. Ares and Thor. The Wizard and the Human Torch. Whirlwind and Captain America. It was a hell of a sight. And they were winning. They were pushing Dormammu back, with the aid of the chains pulling on him.

"We're going to do this," I called out to Mr. Fantastic. "We're actually going to pull this off!"

"Don't get cocky, Herman! There are still things that can go wrong!"

"Damn it, let me be the optimist for once," I responded.

One hundred feet. Seventy five feet. Fifty feet. Forty feet. They were pushing and shoving, finding the reserves of strength that had enabled each and every one of them to put aside their differences and survive the zombie apocalypse, to make it through this week, and asking those reserves to give them one more push, one more jolt of energy, one last effort to close the damn book on this week and make Earth safe again.

Thirty feet. Twenty feet.

And Dormammu's hands flared crimson.

"ENOUGH!" His hands swept downwards, cutting through the silver chains like a hot knife through butter, and stomping on the hope in my heart at the very same instant. "THIS ENDS!" Dormammu's hands shot forward, and a spray of crimson energy engulfed everyone near him, fliers and ground pounders alike. I had to shield my eyes as the light burned into my retinas, the last thing I saw was Wonder Man and Thor plunging through the ground.

"TOO LATE! TOO LATE, STEPHEN STRANGE," Dormammu bellowed. "TOO LATE, HERMAN SCHULTZ! TOO LATE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!" His hands exploded as he shot crimson energy into the night sky. "ALREADY IT BEGINS! THIS WORLD, AND YOUR LIFE ENERGY, ARE..."

He shot from the sky in a blaze of yellow. One moment, the air was clear as the fliers impacted the ground from Dormammu's attack. The next, a flash of energy streaked towards Dormammu's chest, and the sound of the impact hit us before the sound of the figure breaking the sound barrier reached our ears from behind. Dormammu didn't just stagger. He was blown damn near off his feet as he got slammed just below the navel, doubling over even as he was lifted off his feet. As Dormammu flew backwards, the silver chains shot out from the portal, and snagged him around the waist a final time. "NO!" Those were Dormammu's last words on this planet as he was pulled through the silver portal. "THIS CAN NOT BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Like he was falling into a pool, the portal rippled violently as Dormammu hit back first. Doubled over like a jackknife, he disappeared into the portal, his screams of rage and frustration echoing across the Great Lawn.

Floating in mid-air, arms crossed over his chest, Thor's response was simple and direct. "It is done."

X

"Herman," Mr. Fantastic cried, "he's through! Throw the book!"

"On it!"

I was already charging towards the portal, the book tucked under my arm, when I heard two sounds. The first was the sound of a magnetic beam firing. The second was the sound of another magnetic beam firing, and the hot jackhammer slamming into the small of my back. I was propelled forward, the Darkhold popping out of my hands with what sounded like a relieved sigh and landing a few feet in front of me as the wind got knocked out of me, thanks to hitting the ground.

Groaning, I reached forward, trying to get my hands back on the Darkhold, when a red metal boot stepped down on my hand. I cried out softly in agony as the owner of the boot spoke.

"Thank you for all your assistance, Herman," Norman Osborn said as he bent down and picked the Darkhold off the ground. "I'll take it from here."

X

"Osborn," I croaked, trying to pull my hand free from under his boot, "what are you doing?"

"Making my name, Herman," he replied simply. His suit's helmet was pulled back, his face exposed to the world. "The cameras will see me throwing this book into the portal, and when it closes, that will signal the end of the zombie plague. All the people watching will see that I was the one who sealed humanity's final victory. And with public opinion on my side, who knows how much power the willing masses will allow me to reign over them?"

"You can't..."

"Oh, I can. Watch me," he proclaimed as he strode away, towards the portal.

I slowly managed to stand up. "You can't! Osborn," I called after him, "I have to be the one to throw that book through! It has to be me!"

"Please, Herman," he called over his shoulder. "Haven't you had enough of stealing the spotlight?"

Behind me, Mr. Fantastic was face down, unmoving on the ground. No one had noticed Osborn hitting me and him in the back because they were all watching the portal as it still swirled and shimmered. All eyes were on the portal, including Osborn's, as I tried to run after him. "Osborn, listen to me! Listen! Doctor Strange said I have to throw that book away! If I'm not the one who does it, that book will just find its way back to me, and Dormammu will lock onto the book and find his way back here! And this will all probably start again!

"And that just means, Herman, that I will have a chance to more definitively defeat the zombie plague, instead of having to scramble and dance to your tune time and time again. Now, leave me be, Herman..."

My blast hit him square in the back of his suit. He staggered forward a few steps, almost dropping to one knee. I kept walking, closing the distance between us. "Osborn, give me the damn book. I'm not going to let your ego damn this world when we're so close to saving it."

The look on his face said it all. Annoyance. "And I'm not going to let a fifth-tier criminal like you interfere with my plans anymore! Walk away now, before I..."

"...try to kill me? You did that already, and it didn't catch." I stopped five feet away, the silver portal shimmering in the distance. One glove pointed at Osborn's face, point-blank range. A level four would shred that glare off his face in a heartbeat. A level eight would shatter his skull. "Give me the book, Osborn. Or else..."

"...or else what, Herman?" He straightened up, staring at me with naked contempt. "You're going to kill me. You're not a killer. Never have been, and you will never have the courage to be. Even if it means saving the world. Now, if you don't mind, I have a date with destiny."

He turned his back on me. And I blasted him again. Level four this time, square in his back. That almost knocked him down. The second blast did. "I won't kill you, Osborn, but damned if you don't think I won't beat you around like a red-headed stepchild." Now, give me the..."

A line of webbing shot from the side suddenly wrapped itself around my wrist. The glove I was aiming at Osborn was yanked away, spinning me around as more webbing shot out. My vibro-smasher was covered in webbing, pinning my fingers in place. My other arm came up, trying to get in a blast at Osborn, but a strong hand grabbed my wrist. The thumb being driven into the pressure point on my wrist bone caused me to cry out, distracting me enough for whoever was grabbing me to put my arm in a hammerlock.

"Damn it, Herman," the voice of Mac Gargan hissed beside me. "You just love getting yourself into stupid situations lately, don't you?"

Osborn didn't even brush the dirt off his power armor as he stood back up. "Bullseye, Venom, make sure the Shocker doesn't interfere. I have to go save the world."

"On it, boss." Bullseye's finger kept digging into my wrist, making me sag in the grip of the two villains, as Venom tore the air compressor from my back with his free hand. "Seriously, Schultz," Bullseye proclaimed, "you just keep looking for new ways to die, don't you?"

Osborn was walking away, towards the portal, as I strained and pulled at the two men holding me in place. "Osborn! Damn it, Osborn! Don't do this!"

It had taken the sounds of combat and my screaming to grab everyone's attention away from the silver portal that Dormammu had been knocked through. They all turned to see the red-and-blue power armor of Norman Osborn striding towards the portal. In one hand, the Darkhold rest comfortably, not trying to jar itself loose or escape. It knew what was going to happen, and went along for the ride willingly. Everyone else slowly turned to see what was happening. What they saw was me struggling with Bullseye and Venom, screaming at Osborn, and the Darkhold in his hands.

"Osborn." Captain America was now walking alongside him. "What's going on?"

"Apparently, the Shocker decided he wanted the moment of glory. When Dr. Richards offered to throw this book of magic away and seal the portal once and for all, the Shocker blasted him in the back and said no one else was going to do it but him. I think having the spotlight this past week has caused him to become deluded." It all came out so smoothly, with perfect inflection, no trace of the lie evident. "I happened to come across the Shocker in the nick of time, and if you'll excuse me, Captain, I'm going to end this threat to our planet once and for all."

"That...that doesn't sound like the Herman Schultz I've met, Osborn." Captain America looked over his shoulder, towards where I was straining.

"Doctor Strange said I had to do it, Captain! Believe me! If I don't, Dormammu's just going to come waltzing back at full power, and then we're all screwed!"

"Osborn," Captain America said as he stared at me, "we should talk this over..."

"And let this portal remain open any longer? No, Captain, this threat ends..." Osborn's stride suddenly came to a halt. In front of him, ten feet from the portal, massive arms crossed, two gods stood side-by-side. Ares simply stared at the smaller form of Osborn, while next to him, Thor was the one who spoke, his voice the distant sound of thunder.

"Osborn," Thor said. "We should perhaps listen to Herman Schultz. If he's been in contact with Doctor Strange, it is his advice we should be abiding by."

"Really?" Osborn's voice was calm and clear as he answered Thor. "You're going to take the word of a common criminal who said he talked to a magician over mine?" Thor's response was a simple nod, one motion, firm and resolute. "I see. So, on one side, a criminal who's defied every government order that's been mandated, and on the other side, the man who has run the government for the past week and done his part to keep humanity safe."

"I see a man who has risked his life on the front lines." That was Ares, who's blue eyes glowed from under his helmet down at Osborn. "When I see Herman Schultz, I see a soldier who has done his best to ensure no man was left behind. When I see Norman Osborn, I see a man who has stood above the battlefield, moving units and setting up logistics."

Osborn turned to look at Ares. "Ares, you are the God of War. Surely, you know that one should listen to the general over the private."

"I am the God of War. The generals and the admirals? They belong to my sister, Athena. The line soldiers, the rank and file? They belong to me. And I will listen to one who has seen combat as opposed to one who has been above the fray." It was one step forward, and now Ares was towering over an unflinching Osborn. "Give the book to Herman Schultz, Osborn. Doctor Strange's missives aside, Schultz has earned the right to end this conflict and let the dead rest in peace once again."

They were slowly gathering around Osborn now, a circle of heroes and villains. They all stared silently at Osborn, the stares of men and women such as Ms. Marvel, Mysterio, the Sentry, Doctor Octopus, saying more than any spoken word. Bullseye and Venom's grip on my arms never lessened, leaving me on the outside of the circle as Osborn slowly turned in place. "So, it's come down to this. Again. Each and every one of you would take the word of a common criminal who's never amounted to anything in his life over mine. It may have been the actions of Herman Schultz who brought you all together, but if it wasn't for my leadership and my tactics, none of..."

"...the citizens who you demanded be moved into central areas would have been put into harm's way," Iron Man's voice rang out. "You don't seem to understand, Osborn. Moving everyone into one place concentrated the zombies in one place as well. We got lucky here in New York City because all the heroes were here. They got lucky in Denver because the villains you ordered arrested made a stand there. They didn't get lucky in Boston. In Chicago. In Houston. I'm more willing to take the word of Herman Schultz over yours at the moment, Osborn, because his actions have saved lives. Yours haven't."

"Oh? And we should have listened to the generals who said, because we haven't touched upon our nuclear resources, we should drop bombs on the major cities?" Osborn shook his head in disgust. "I've done my best, and I will be the one to end this. Not a two-bit hack like Herman Schultz."

Nothing like watching a villain slowly breakdown and reveal how screwed up he was. But we didn't have time for the big monologue. "Hey, Bullseye," I called out. "Your bones are laced with metal, right?"

"Adamantium," the assassin replied with a grin. "With just a bit of vibranium for good measure."

"Right. You know why it's called vibranium, right?"

My thumbs jammed down on the triggers of my vibro-smashers. The blast that smacked into Bullseye resonated through his skin, past his muscles, and all along the metal that ran along his bones and spine. It was like Bullseye had been smacked with a giant gong, and I could make out his body vibrating slightly as he fell backwards, cursing in agony through gritted teeth as hell's bells rang in his head.

On the other side, Venom's webbing has caught my thumb against the trigger when he had shot me. The blast tore through the webbing like it was paper. When it hit Venom, the vibrating air rippled along his black skin. The symbiote that covered his body shrieked in pain, pulling back slightly and revealing the muscular skin of Gargan underneath. He staggered away, screaming in pain.

The second my arms were loose, I was off and running.

"Well, I'm the one who set this whole thing in motion, and..." Osborn was in mid-rant as I passed between Black Mamba and the Thing, charging at Osborn in the center of the circle. I didn't even think to blast Osborn. I simply ran at him, leaping through the air to tackle the bastard...

...and slamming into his power armor shoulder first.

I bounced off of him, grimacing as pain raced through my shoulder. Damn it.

Osborn turned to look at me. One eyebrow raised into the air as he realized who had hit him. "You. You won't deny me, Herman. This triumph is mine, and mine alone!" He suddenly darted forward, passing between Ares and Thor, who just barely managed to miss grabbing him. "This plague ends now," he screamed, a high-pitch cry of triumph as he pulled his arm back to dramatically hurl the Darkhold through the silver portal...

This time, I didn't go for Osborn. My hands reached out for the Darkhold clutched in his grip. An intense, stabbing warmth shot through my blood as I closed my fingers on the book, and its harsh whispers, demanding I release it, let it go, let it be free. Not today, baby. Not today.

"Ugh! Let go of the book, you cretin!" Osborn's power-armor assisted punch should have broke my jaw. It definitely knocked a tooth loose, the damn thing barely staying in its socket as he pulled at the Darkhold. I had both hands on the binding, closing it shut, refusing to let go.

"Osborn, you idiot, this is what I'm supposed to! I have to do this!"

We stood in place, just feet from the portal. Osborn punched me with his free hand, but there was no way I could let go. I just couldn't. I wouldn't. Everything about this past week. The civilians in the 7-11. The kids in the apartment building. Electro. Vulture. The Punisher. The Grim Reaper. Dormammu. Fred. Aleksei. It was simple. I wasn't going to lose.

Out of the corner of my eye, the Avengers were moving towards the fray. With their help, Osborn could easily be defeated...and the Darkhold could pop loose in the confusion, bouncing into the portal, and then who knows what the hell could happen.

I didn't know much about the laws of magic. All I knew was I had to make sure the Darkhold went through the portal. It had to be me. No one else. Ok, fine. I worked pretty damn well when the rules and situation are a bit fuzzy.

I wrapped one arm around the Darkhold, pulling myself closer to Osborn, who also refused to let go. My other hand pointed down at the ground. My thumb went to the trigger of my vibro-smasher.

_Hey, Darkhold. Get off my planet!_

At such a short range, I probably shouldn't have used a level five. But I had to be sure. I had to make absolutely short this was going to work.

The large blast smacked into the ground. The Avengers were knocked backwards, falling to the ground as the pressure wave washed over them. And the same pressure wave knocked me and Norman Osborn off our feet, into the air...

...and through the portal right behind us.

X

One moment, I was in Central Park at night.

The next moment, I was in Times Square at noon.

It happened instantly, the grass under my feet becoming the asphalt my back cracked against as I landed. My mind was trying to deal with the sudden shift of time and location, as the sun shone down upon me and One Times Square towered over me.

Groaning, I sat up, holding the back of my head. Ok. I was still in New York. That was a good sign, right? Then I noticed something extremely out of the ordinary.

The electronic billboards and news ticker, the world famous trademarks of One Times Square, were dark.

Slowly, I pushed myself up to my feet, taking in the scene around me. It definitely was Times Square, the New Yorker in me confirming it. But instead of being lit up like a Christmas tree, even in the middle of the day, instead everything was trashed. The print billboards flapped lightly in the breeze as they had begun to peel away from their backing. All of the electronic billboards were dark, and several of them were broken as well. Cars were scattered across the intersection. Some of them were parked in neat rows, waiting at the traffic lights, but several had crashed through the front windows of the shops and restaurants lining the street, and a few had been overturned onto their roofs. It looked like a war had been fought here in Times Square. But, from where I was standing, nothing was on fire. Nothing smoldered. And the air was silent and still, no sounds of gunfire or emergency services reaching my ears.

And, maybe most important, I couldn't hear any moaning or groaning.

I was coming to grips with all the abandoned ambiance in when I remembered. "Crap. The Darkhold!" I immediately looked around, my eyes scanning the ground near me. Aside from the overturned car that was a few feet away from me, I didn't see the book of magic anywhere. Whether or not that was a good thing, I didn't know.

Ok, Herman. First things first, and that thing is finding out where the hell you are. Or when. Did you just get tossed out of Central Park into Times Square? Or did you someone get tossed into another freaking' dimension. Carefully, I crossed Times Square towards an abandoned newspaper kiosk. The newspapers were the same: New York Times, New York Post, Financial Times, USA Today. The headlines on each were the standard run-of-the-mill fluff that had dominated the papers in the days before the zombie uprising. No huge font headlines proclaiming "THE DEAD WALK," or any other notice of impending doom. No notices of the government moving individuals into the cities, and no guidelines of proper corpse disposal. Which means, whatever happened here, had happened fast. Plague? Virus?

That would be just my luck, wouldn't it. "Congratulations, Herman," I muttered under my breath. "You saved the world by helping banish Dormammu and the Darkhold from Earth. And as your reward...well, have you ever seen 'The Stand?'"

The old instinct of not shouting 'hello' at the top of my lungs bubbled up to the surface. Forget the stand, I might have ended up in the middle of 'I Am Legend' or 'The Omega Man.' And yeah, I know it was daytime, but my analogy still stands. Ok, ok, Herman, what you need to do first is find someone else. With the communicator in my mask still broken, I needed a cell phone. Or, even better, the radio from that NYPD cop car over there.

I was walking towards the cop car when the overturned car next to me exploded, flinging me sideways as a ball of fire rose into the clear sky. I landed on my shoulder and rolled through, the broken asphalt biting into my back before I managed to end up on my knees. The car was engulfed in flames, the sounds of burning metal the only noise in Times Square.

Save for the low-pitched growl of rocket boots. He banked around the plume of smoke, the palms of his hands glowing a bright orange. I quickly leaped to my feet and turned to run. The magnetic beams carved gashes into the asphalt right after I began to sprint away. I didn't look behind me, my focus squarely on the broken window of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company that was rapidly drawing closer. The rapid-fire sound of energy blasts slamming into the asphalt pushed me to move faster. The beams followed me all the way to the sidewalk outside the restaurant. I dove forward, throwing myself inside the restaurant as the energy beams destroyed the bottom portion of the window. I managed to pull myself behind a waitress' station, panting from the sudden exertion as I rested against the wooden podium. Throughout the restaurant, tables were overturned, chairs had been kicked over, and plates and silverware were scattered, as if whatever apocalypse had ripped through the city had hit during the dinner rush.

The sound of rocket boots in flight came through the window, and I heard an angry voice call out. "You, Herman Schultz! You will receive the full brunt of my anger for ruining all my plans!"

"Well," I called out, "if you had just let me throw..."

The top of the waitress' station exploded, the magnetic beam shooting through the restaurant before cutting a hole in the kitchen door. I scampered away as the debris flew through the air, getting underneath a table as the voice screamed again.

"All my plans, all my schemes, ruined by a common thug, all so you could be loved by everyone! Well, guess what, Herman? There's no one else! I've scanned the city, and you and I are the only two human beings in New York!" Another magnetic beam tore through the ruined restaurant as Norman Osborn's voice gained more pitch. "You threw us through the portal onto a dead world, Herman, and with no witnesses, I fully intend on making this city your tomb!"

Yeah, blame me because your ass wouldn't...

The familiar hissing sound reached my ears. "Oh, crap," I exclaimed before I pushed up, flipping the table on its edge. The bar was right in front of me, and I managed to dive behind it, sending wine glasses and beer bottles flying before the heat seeking missile shredded the table, damn near removing it from existence

So, let's count the score. I'm apparently on another world that's experienced its own apocalypse, with no clue on how to get home. And I'm being hunted by Norman Osborn, who's wearing a suit of power armor, and with no one watching, is probably about five seconds away from going Green Goblin on my ass.

This day can't get any worse, I thought as I pulled my mask back over my face.

On the floor behind the bar, a glass laid shattered, and the matchbooks it had held were strewn across the floor. I pocketed one before, carefully, I crawled towards the end of the bar. The kitchen door swung slowly on its hinge, the edges of the hole Osborn had blasted it in still smoldering. Another hissing sound came from behind me. I dove forward, making it about halfway through the doorway into the kitchen before the missile blew up the bar. The bottles of alcohol caught fire, blue and orange flames engulfing the bar as I pulled myself into the kitchen. Over the sound of crackling flames, a rapid series soft thuds impacted the wall, probably from a chain gun built into Osborn's armor.

I kept low, pulling my way through the darkened kitchen, breaking down my current situation as I carefully stepped around a pile of pots and pans scattered on the tile floor. I couldn't run away and try to hide. Osborn could just scan the city and track me down again. So, the only option available to me was to fight. Now, I should be scared. I should be nervous, and deep down inside, I was. But I had beaten Electro. I had beaten the Vulture. I had beaten the Rhino. I had helped defeat Dormammu. Sure, Norman Osborn, either as the Green Goblin or in this Iron Patriot get-up, was the kind of villain bad guys talked about over bottles of beer, the guy we'd work for while constantly wondering when the hell he was going to snap. But I had beaten a human dynamo and a walking tank.

Norman Osborn was just a man in a suit of power armor.

The gunfire had faded away, but in its place came the sound of metal boots trouncing across the floor of the Bubba Gump Shrimp company. "Herman," Osborn's voice called out, "you know you can't hide, and you can't run. If you just step out and face me like a man, I'll end it quick."

Yeah, right. I glanced over at the stoves lining one wall of the kitchen. The pilot lights were all out. I darted across the floor, giving a damn about noise right now. Large pots and several pans, caked with burned food, were scattered on the burners. Once I hit the stove, I turned all the burners on, full blast. No flames ignited, but the faint hissing noise of natural gas was music to my ears. The ovens were next. I threw open the doors and turned them on. Without electricity, I couldn't figure out if the gas lines were feeding into the ovens, but maybe I'd get lucky. But I need time for the kitchen to fill up, for the air to get saturated with gas.

"Don't hide, Herman," I heard Osborn taunt as I made my move, thumbs holding my triggers down half-way "Just imagine what everyone..."

I kicked the kitchen door open. Osborn's head whipped around as I let out twin level five blasts. The blast wave whipped the flames of the burning bar and shredded whatever bits of fake wood remained standing, ripping the nautical-themed flare off the walls in the process. I didn't know if I caught Osborn or not, because as the door swung shut, I was diving to the side. The chain gun's bullets almost tore the door from its hinges, turning it into sawdust and splinters falling towards the ground. The line of bullets moved across the wall. I covered my head, flat on my stomach, as the large caliber rounds passed over me and embedded themselves in the back wall.

When only the sound of the chain gun cooling down could be heard, I was immediately back on my feet. The twins level threes blew a hole through the bullet-weakened wall, and I blindly fired two level fives in a wide spread before spinning around and diving over the island counter. As I dove, the wall behind me was vaporized as Osborn's gun poured round after round into where it thought I would be cowering. As I slammed into the tile floor, scattering the pots and pans as they bit into my stomach, I could detect the faint small of gas. Just a little more time, I decided. I rolled onto my back, gloves aimed at the doorway, and sent two level fours out into the restaurant, tearing the doorway out of the damn foundation. The response from Osborn was more bullets ripping above my head as I rolled over and belly crawled towards the back of the kitchen.

By the time I reached the large walk-in coolers, the gunfire had stopped, leaving only the actual fire still blazing where the bar had once stood. The smell of gas was prevalent now, even back here. To one side, sunlight came through the emergency door, which had been ripped off its hinges, leading to the alley behind the restaurant. And on a related note, one of the doors to what had once been a walk-in freezer was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, blocking the way back to the manager's office.

Metal footsteps came towards the kitchen. I ducked into the small hallway leading towards the alley, fingers fumbling for the matchbook. "I outgun you, Herman. I'm smarter than you. I'm faster than you. I've already thought of ten ways to flay your alive while your still breathing carcass is hanging from the Brooklyn Bridge. What do you have that could possibly beat me?"

Deep breath. The match flared to life from the carbon strip, and as soon as the flame caught, I hurled it into the kitchen, bracing for the explosion as the burning match arced through the air...

A short burst from the chain gun, and the match disintegrated in mid-air, snuffing the flames. "Seriously, Herman? You were going to fill the kitchen with gas and blow me up? That was your grand plan? This is low, even for a common criminal like you. A mastermind like myself will never fall for such a simple trick."

"Yeah," I called out. "One match wouldn't catch a genius like you, Norman." The next match ignited all of the matches in the book, the air filling with sulfur as I aimed low. "So let's see how you handle a whole bunch!" This time, I aimed low, and the burning matchbook slid under one of the island counters. As the shoulder-mounted chain gun tracked the matchbook, my other hand took aim at the section of gas line visible between the soup tray and the oven. The gun was tracking back in my direction as the the blast ripped a hole in the gas line. I could feel the bullets whip past my ear as I ducked back into the hallway, scampering towards the open door leading to the alley...

The sound of metal being torn from the floor reached my ears just before the kitchen exploded. The hallway turned oranges as intense heat raced up my back, and a strong hand propelled me forward. The narrow hallway funneled the explosion like water through a high-pressure hose, shooting out through the door. I smacked into the opposite wall, just managing to brace myself with my hands. Secondary explosions were evident as I turned back to the doorway. The hall was engulfed in flames, spreading from floor to ceiling. There wasn't any doubt that Osborn was caught in the explosion. But did I do anything more than scratch the pain job?

The wall of the restaurant exploded as magnetic beams shot out from the kitchen. Answers THAT question.

I couldn't make it to either end of the alleyway without giving Osborn a clean shot at me. So, I did the unexpected. As Osborn's red-and-blue form, the paint job still perfect, crawled out of the burning rubble, I was charging him, hands forward. He turned to face me just as I hit him with two level fives at point blank-range. The first one tore the chain gun off his shoulder, while the second went off as I punched him in the chest, right on the white star emblazoned on his torso. My suit managed to absorb most of the backblast, and the heat from the kitchen was a pleasant warmth that couldn't compare to the warm feeling in my heart as Osborn went flying backwards, caught off-guard from my kamikaze attack. Keep it up, Herman. Even before he landed, I was letting off another level five, almost juggling him as he bounced off a nearby wall.

"Herman, each attack," he hissed through his metal mask, "each assault you lay upon me, is..."

"Just shut up," I told him as another level five sent him onto the sidewalk just outside the restaurant we had just ruined. My gauntlet was flashing a warning about power consumption, and I lifted my other one, keeping it pointed at Osborn as he climbed back to his feet, using the cop car for leverage. The center of his suit was crumpled from where I had punched him. "I'm not interested in your taunts, in your boasts, in your threats. You want to kill me? Well, Osborn, I owe you a whole bunch of hurt. Not for trying to kill me. But for killing Aleksei. I told you we were going to have a little talk about what you did to my best friend."

"Oh? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry, Herman. Here. How about I give you a car to make it up to you!" The hand on the cop car clenched, crushing the metal panels on the door and giving him a damn good grip. With one arm, he lifted the car into the air, holding it overhead for a moment before swinging it at me. I dove to one side, slamming into the side of a pickup truck as Osborn drove the cop car into the sidewalk grill-first. Before I could fire off a blast, Osborn swung around, cocking the cop car over his shoulder to hurl it at me. I ducked down and slid underneath the pick up truck as Osborn drove the car into its side, pushing it sideways as I managed to slither out the other side.

"Don't like the car, Herman? How about I offer you a pick up truck too!" The pick up truck left the ground, held by the front bumper in Osborn's other hand. On my knees, I leaned backwards, dropping to the ground as he slammed the two vehicles together. The roof of the cop car and the passenger side door of the truck merged together just a foot above my face, and a loud squeal greeted me as Osborn pulled them back apart, expecting to see Herman Schultz as a fine jelly between two metal pieces of bread. Instead, he got a face full of level five, rocking his head backwards and causing him to drop the vehicles. I was on my feet, firing off another blast, when he fired a magnetic beam in my general direction. It caught the edge of my shoulder, a jackhammer blow that ripped away a large chunk of my suit.

As one hand gripped at my shoulder, I heard the familiar hissing sound. My other hand came up, firing a level two at a wide spread that caught the two missiles that Osborn had fired towards me. They exploded in mid-air, giving me time to dive away. I managed to squeeze under a Hummer that had been stuck at the stoplight, blocking Osborn's line of sight to me and giving me time to consider my options.

"I can just build a machine and go home, Herman." Through the windows of the Hummer, I could see Osborn turning in place, scanning the wreckage of Times Square. The eyes of his power armor glowed blue, probably using some kind of radar or low-powered laser to search for me. "I can fly to the Baxter Building and break into Mr. Fantastic's laboratory. I'm sure he has some sort of dimensional teleporter that will see me safely home. I could leave you here, Herman, stranded and alone for the rest of your life. I wonder just how long it would take before despair set in and you slit your wrists, or overdosed on sleeping pills?"

No. Osborn wouldn't do that. Most villains always go the "there's no way he could have survived that" route and leave the superhero behind. And we all know, the superhero is never dead. Osborn's too smart for that. He'll kill me dead before leaving this world.

His gaze turned my way. I ducked behind the large tire of the Hummer, pulling my entire body behind the wheel. I could try running for another restaurant or shop, but blowing up the last one had barely scratched the Iron Patriot's paint job. It had taken a level five assisted punch to put a dent in him, and another level five to knock off his suit's chain gun...

...wait. My punches could barely scuff up Aleksei's suit of armor. Level fives were something the Rhino could have just shrugged off. This was power armor Norman freaking' Osborn had built. And you're telling me I could rough it up more than I could have roughed by Aleksei's suit? Either Osborn had a serious design flaw in his armor...or he just never took a guy like me into consideration when he designed and built that suit.

Sometimes, being underrated's underrated.

I was out of batteries, and I needed to make sure I had enough firepower. Every single bit of vibrating air I could force out of my gauntlets had to blow a hole in Osborn's armor. Which meant I had to get close. And really, I only had one shot to drop him. In melee range, he'd swat me around and probably snap my neck. I had to hit him on that star again, the same place I decked him last time, like cracking a coconut to get to the soft, easily explodable fruit underneath.

I stood up, stepping to my right, my vibro-smashers pressed flush against the metal sides of the black Hummer. My thumbs were held down, ready to instantly unleashed two simultaneous blasts. I watched, through the open windows, as Osborn kept turning in place. "I'll tell you what, Herman. If you show yourself now, I'll even let everyone back home, all the people who apparently loved so much to risk your life for, that you had some sort of inspirational and pithy set of last words before you shoved me back through the portal and saved my life."

"Ok!" His head was whipping around as I called out. "Here's my last words. Catch!"

The Hummer flew sideways, tumbling end-over-end as I fired point blank level fives into its side. As it sailed through the air as Osborn, I was already running right behind it. If Osborn fired his magnetic beams at it, the Hummer would reverse course, coming right back at me and probably ripping my head off. Hell, I was a dead man anyway. It was worth the risk.

The Hummer stopped in mid-air, about five feet off the ground. I was right up on it as the large vehicle slowly lifted into the air, the servos in the arm of Osborn's power armor easily hold it above his head. Maybe he was about to say something sarcastic, some kind of taunt, but I didn't give him that chance. The second I had clearance, I sprinted forward, my fist cocked back, thumb on the trigger. Feet planted. Arm coming forward. Speed traded for accuracy. The Hummer was still being lifted as my fist slammed into the white star, the level five-blast firing at the same time.

The recoil blew my wrist backwards, snapping my arm like a wet towel. Osborn staggered backwards, the Hummer slipping from his grip. I was moving forward, my other hand already going for a quick level five jab right on his star. The Hummer crashed to the ground behind us as I landed another punch, sending him further backwards. The third punch didn't get a chance to land, however, as Osborn shoved me forward. My back slammed into the Hummer, stunning me for a second. A shower of bright blue sparks was coming from the crumpled chest of the Iron Patriot, falling to the ground in streams of shooting stars. No comment from Osborn, however, as he threw a punch, aimed right at my head. He telegraphed it, giving me plenty of time to move as his fist went into the crumpled roof of the Hummer. As he tried to yank it free, a quick level-five-left and a level-five-right, thrown from point blank range, caused more sparks to erupt from that star. Just like I had figured. The bright blue circle on Iron Man's armor was his power source, and the same held true for the Iron Patriot's suit. His hand pulled itself free, but I had dove forward, crawling under Osborn's legs to get free. The sparks felt warm on my suit's back as I leaped back to my feet, spinning around and waiting just a second for Osborn to turn around as well. Immediately, one more level-five, driving it with every single bit of force and leverage I could muster into the heart of the star.

This time, it wasn't a shower of sparks. It was a supernova. Osborn's chestplate exploded with an intense blue heat. The blast wave threatened to throw me backwards, but my hand was caught in Osborn's power source. The strain on my wrist was enormous, feeling like the whole thing was going to get ripped away from the rest of my arm. Everything around me was brightness as I pulled back my other hand. I may or may not have been screaming as I brought it forward, and the level five fired off right as it joined my other hand, directly frying whatever power source Osborn was using to power his armor.

That explosion? That one threw me backwards. The explosion damn near annihilated the power source, freeing both of my hands and leaving me perfectly capable of getting tossed across Times Square. I bounced off of the sidewalk, managing to land on my back. It sounded like a million reams of paper being ripped apart at once as I lifted my eyes. Streams of blue energy shot from Osborn's chest as he stood against the Hummer, shooting into the air and disappearing like ectoplasm.. It was already beginning to die down as I got to my feet, the light fading away under the noon sun. Osborn's head was bowed, a huge hole torn into the middle of his power armor, exposing his burned skin underneath. I could hear his panting coming through his speakers, an electric breathing that didn't stop me in the least as I ran across Times Square. He must have heard me coming, because he raised his head, exposing the front of his helmet to me right as I drove my fist into it. No blasts, because I was dry. Just a good old fashion right hand, my vibro-smasher leading the way.

"I told you were going to have a talk, Osborn," I panted as the adrenaline wore off and my exertions caught up with me. "I told you. I...screw it. I got nothing witty to say. How about I just say I whipped your ass, and we'll leave it at that?"

Sparks dropped from the hole in his chest as his helmet slid back in sections. A thin trickle of blood ran from Osborn's noise, and crimson stained his lips. "How..." he muttered. "How did you hurt me? This suit was built to stand up to no less than Thor himself. I walked through fire with it..."

I pulled my mask over my face, letting Osborn see the tired look of victory I was wearing. "You built that thing to deal with guys like Thor, like the Hulk, like Iron Man. And I'm sure, in a fight, you'd give them a run for their money. But..." I raised my vibro-smasher into the air, inches from his face. "...you never, ever counted on having to fight me. Even in your most far-fetched scenarios, you didn't think you'd ever cross paths with me. And normally, we wouldn't have, Osborn. Fate shoved us together, though...and you just never planned on dealing with me."

"Huh. It appears being underestimated is one of your superpowers, Schultz." He looked down at the sparking power source. "You destroyed the arc reactor, Herman, and the backup power source. Right now, I'm wearing fifty pounds of lightweight armor. Without an electrical current, I might as well be wearing tissue paper. Congratulations. You've won."

"Oh, you think this is over?" I grabbed his chin, and held his head in place as I spoke to him. "This isn't over. You tried to kill me, Osborn," I hissed. "You had Petruski poison me and left me to die on the streets. You killed my best friend right in front of me. You almost sacrificed the entire world for a damn photo-op. And you said you had plans, schemes, grand designs for when this was all said and done. Give me one good reason..."

"...to let me live?" Even beaten up, Osborn's grin gave me pause. I stepped back, and he held his head high as he spoke to me. "You won't kill me, Herman. You're not a killer. You never have been, and you never will be. Oh, sure, you may be thinking of vigilante justice right now, but you won't find the courage for it. You always went for the payoffs, the bribes, hitting banks at the right time when guards were looking the other way and the tellers just handed over the cash. You worked so hard to maintain your reputation, and all I did was kill innocent civilians. And they were about to hand me control of SHIELD. Face it, Herman. It's because I can kill people, because I can end lives, that I will always be better and more respected then you."

The anger, the frustration, the truth of that statement...never showed up. It never crossed my mind. "Yeah...well, I have my self-respect. And since we're the last two people on this planet, I can live with it. Goodbye...Norman."

His eyes widened with surprise as I turned away from him. "Wait...that's it? That's the talk you wanted to have with me?"

"There's nothing more to say, is there?" I passed the overturned cop car, my feet crunching on the broken asphalt. "I won. You lost. I beat you..." I paused, a thought entering my head. "Yeah, Norman. I beat you. Just like I've beaten Spider-Man, I beat you. That's all the vindication I need, to know you're going to stew about being beaten by a two-bit blue collar criminal who took that pretty suit of power armor and turned it into a paperweight. That's victory, Norman. And it feels pretty damn good."

"No...no! Don't you walk away from me!" Osborn struggled to pull himself away from the Hummer as I kept walking. "Scum like you doesn't walk away from Norman Osborn! You think you won now, but if you don't come back here and kill me, Herman, I will find you, and I..."

"...will just lose to me. Again," I said, a smirk on my face that he couldn't see.

"Damn you, Herman! I promise, right now..."

I heard a familiar zipping sound, and then a voice both of us knew very well ringed out across Times Square.

"Osborn? I thought we had killed you already!"

"YOU! Get away from me, you damAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

My head whipped around as Osborn's scream tore through the air. He had been pinned back against the Hummer by a figure in a red-and-blue uniform. Osborn's arms were flailing as he cried out in agony, a banshee's screech that tore into my ears.

"HELP ME!" One arm reached out towards where I stood in shock. "HELP ME...HELP MEEEEEEE..."

I heard a combination of sound, of snapping, tearing, and ripping. The windows of the Hummer became covered with a spray of red blood, pulsing from the shoulder of Norman Osborn where his left arm had once been attached. His eyes wide with shock, Osborn slid down the side of the vehicle. His right arm swayed in mid-air, still reaching for me. The other figure was peeling Osborn's arm like a grape, and once a chunk of red metal hit the ground, I heard a loud slurping noise, mixed with a sigh of contentment.

I knew what was happening. I knew it exactly. But as my brain tried to work past the shock, another figure came into view, this one a leggy blonde in a skintight black uniform.

"Hey! Save some for me! Don't bogart all the meat!" Osborn gave off a final cry as the figure shoved her hands into the hole in his chestplate, pulling back large chunks of burned flesh. "Mmm...blackened. Just how I like it," she cried as she shoved the meat into her mouth.

"Oh, God," I whispered, taking a step backwards. Of course, as I did so, I somehow found the one can of Pepsi that someone had left in the middle of Times Square to knock over. Even over the sounds of chewing, the soft clink of the rolling can was like a gunshot.

Immediately, their heads whipped around. Blood dripped from their mouths, and even as they stared at me, they continued to chew on Osborn's flesh. Ms. Marvel's face was sunken, the edges of her mouth covered in crimson, and her teeth stained darkly. She simply stared at me, her eyes roaming my body in a very uncomfortable way, as the other person spoke.

"Shocker!" Spider-Man, his mask torn to pieces, and half the flesh on his jaw missing, grinned evilly, bits of meat falling from his mouth. "Now, I know we killed you! I remember you screaming like a little girl when we ripped your head off. But hey, if I'm wrong, that just means we get to eat you again!"

"Back off, wall-crawler!" A large shadow suddenly loomed over me. I spun around, my gloves empty, to see Giant-Man towering over Times Square, about as tall as Dormammu had been back in Central Park. "You and Blondie can have Osborn! The Shocker's ours!"

"Get him, boys!" At Giant-Man's feet, Wolverine, his skin torn apart, pointed his metal claws at me. "Whoever brings him down gets double rations!"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," I muttered.

Captain America was missing the top half of his head as he ran at me, black brain fluid spilling over the sides of his skull.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"

Thor didn't even have Mjolnir, just a lead pipe with a rock on the end as he charged.

"OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

I aimed my gloves at the charging Captain America, hoping to get at least one good shot off, when a strong hand dug into the back of my neck, and I felt myself being yanked backwards. "No," I screamed as the world flashed bright around me. "NO!"

X

A strong hand smacked me across the face.

"Herman! For the love of God, man, stop bloody screaming! You're embarrassing yourself!"

The voice spoke in an Australian accent. Slowly, I opened one eye. The sky above me was black, with several plumes of smoke slowly dispersing and letting the moonlight shine through. And kneeling over me, Boomerang looked up at Doctor Strange.

"Did you have to slap him," Doctor Strange asked.

"Hey, mate, it stopped him from screaming."

"Where...oh, God, tell me I'm in Central Park, tell me Dormammu just got shoved through the portal, and tell me there's no more zombies," I cried out, grabbing Boomerang by the front of his costume. "Tell me it's over!"

"Damn. Interdimensional travel does NOT agree with you, Herman." Fred grabbed me by the wrist, and with Doctor Strange's help, got me back on my feet. "Yeah. It's over. Dormammu's gone. The corpses are corpses again. And you spent the last thirty seconds screaming like a little girl."

"Are you ok, Herman?" Doctor Strange was examining me, pulling my mask back from my face and studying my features. "Boomerang is right. Interdimensional travel is not for the faint of heart."

"Yeah," I responded, letting him do his examination. "I'm fine. I...where I was wasn't the happiest place on Earth."

"Understandable. And Norman Osborn? Was he there with you?"

After a second, I nodded. "Yeah. But...he's not coming back." At the look on Strange's and Fred's face, I wave my hand. "I'll explain later, Doctor. The...citizens of where we ended up got their hands on him...wait. The Darkhold. Where I was, Doctor, I didn't see the damn thing when I landed..."

"It is fine, Herman. It and Dormammu have found their way to different planes of existence. And, much like you had requested, we found our way home as well."

"Yeah," Fred added, "even Spider-Man. Why you wanted that prick brought back, I'll never know," he said with a grin. "I'm kidding." Another grin. "Maybe."

"Fred," I said, "I'm about to do something really, really dumb. Sorry in advance." With that, I wrapped my arms around him, pulling my friend into a tight hug. "I am so damn glad to see you," I said in a quiet voice.

For a second, he returned the strong embrace. Then Fred remember he was Boomerang. "Yeah, yeah. I still owe you for all the beer I drank," he joked as he let go of me. For a second, his face got somber. "Mate...about Aleksei..."

"Later," I told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "We'll talk about it later, ok?"

"Herman." A female voice called out. I turned from where Doctor Strange, Boomerang, and myself were standing. It was Ms. Marvel who had spoken. "Welcome back," she said to me. "We were wondering if we were ever going to see you again."

And next to her...he just had to crack wise. "Yeah. But I said not to worry," Spider-Man quipped. "You're like a bad penny. You just keep turning up."

"Do you know how many times I've said that about you?" I walked towards the wall-crawler of my own free will.

"A bunch, I imagine." When I got to where he and Ms. Marvel stood, I could hear him take a deep breath, before putting out his hand. "Welcome back, Herman. I'm glad to see you're ok and in one piece."

It took me a few seconds. The man I had hated most on this planet...no. That's past. That's all in the past. Brand new day. I extended my hand to take his. "Glad to see you back too, Spidey. And I mean that."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Fred said from behind us.

Now, Ms. Marvel put her hand out to me, and I easily took hers. "I'd give you that hug you wanted," she told me in a very quiet voice, "but there's a bit of a crowd here, and I don't want to embarrass you."

Indeed, they were all standing behind her. The Avengers. The Thunderbolts. The villains. The Fantastic Four. Nick Fury and several SHIELD soldiers, who were supervising transporting Electro into a police van. All of them (save the guys watching Electro) were staring at me. Most of them had smiles on their faces, or what passed for a smile in the case of Doctor Octopus.

"Everyone," Mysterio cried out. "Let's hear it for Herman! Hip hip..."

"No!" I pointed at the center of attention, cutting him off in mid-sentence. "Don't, Mysterio. Seriously."

He probably blinked in surprise under that fishbowl helmet of his. "Modesty? From the hero of the day?"

"No." I walked past Ms. Marvel, hands on my hips. "Right now, I'm tired. I'm beat up. I'm exhausted. And so it each and every person here," I said, scanning the entire crowd. "We did this. We all did this. Every single person here is why it's all over. Don't pin this all on me."

Boomerang raised an eyebrow to my side as I continued. "I'm never one to call attention to myself. Never have been, never will be. Everything I did this past week was because it was the right thing to do. And the same goes for everyone here. You all stepped up to the plate because it was the right thing to do. As far as I'm concerned, everyone here's the damn hero, and that includes anyone out there who picked up a baseball bat and bashed a zombie's head in to save a stranger. If you survived, if you fought, if you lived? You're a hero."

I should have had a big closer...but I really didn't. I just waved a hand at the crowd. "So...yeah. The party's over, and now it's time to clean up the mess. But first..."

"First, Schultz, you need to come with me." Colonel Fury walked right up to where I was standing, an fresh cigar unlit in his mouth. "We need to debrief you..."

"Screw your debrief, Colonel."

The cigar drooped slightly in his mouth. "Beg your pardon, Schultz?"

"Colonel, like I said. I'm tired. I'm sore. I'm exhausted. I just jury-rigged a whole bunch of magic spells. I got thrown through an interdimensional portal. I saw a world where I saw things no one needs to ever see. You want to talk to me at some point down the road, fine and dandy. But right now...I need a damn drink." I turned to look at Fred. "You think the Bar With No Name's still open, Fred?"

"Hell, mate," he replied with a huge grin, "if it ain't, we can bloody well open it ourselves."

"Schultz..." Fury growled, under a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Let him go, Colonel," Captain America told him. "The man deserves a drink. Let him have one. As long as you promise to get debriefed tomorrow, Herman."

I nodded, but Fury's eyes narrowed anyway. "You know, I technically outrank you, Captain." Captain America just shrugged. "Fine. Schultz, show up at SHIELD HQ the day after tomorrow, 0900. That'll give you enough time to sober the hell up. And bring me a bottle of damn whiskey."

Hey, when Nick Fury tells you to bring him alcohol, you bring him alcohol. "Let's go, Fred," I said, wrapping my arm around his shoulder so he could fly us both. "Let's get hammered."


	38. Epilogue

"You realize, it's not over."

I shrugged in response. "Looks over to me."

"You don't watch enough horror movies," he shot back. "The killer always comes back for one last scare."

"Not this time," I told him.

Maxwell Dillon smirked behind the glass wall of his holding cell. "Keep on believing that, Herman. And when the dead start rising again, that comment will come back to bite you on the ass. Literally."

"Maybe. But we'll be ready for it."

"You better hope you are. You beat Dormammu. A guy like him has eternity to plan his revenge."

"And what about you, Max? If Dormammu shows back up, would you go right back to work for him?"

Dillon raised a hand to the spartan holding cell. "It'll be better than this." The cell was made entirely out of glass and plastic, not a single centimeter of metal to conduct electricity. It had been built to hold Magneto. Now, of course, the mutant mastermind was helping with relief efforts in Genosha, off the coast of Africa, and it was Electro who was locked up. Two shackles were wrapped around his ankles, one on each leg, and they steadily sucked electricity away from him, through wires surrounded by layers of non-conducting material. And there wasn't a single piece of metal withing fifty meters of his cell. Including anything I would normally have been wearing. All I had on me was a hospital gown, my boxers, and a plastic bag hanging from one hand.

"It's so strange to see you without your suit or your gloves," Electro said. "Did the guards make you check them in before you came to see me."

"Actually, Tony Stark and Henry Pym are studying my gloves." And that wasn't a line of bullcrap. A few days after everything had calmed down, Tony Stark himself had called me. He had apparently seen my vibro-smashers in action and wanted a first-hand look at my weapons. I had visited him at Avengers Tower earlier today, with Henry Pym in attendance. As soon as I handed over the gauntlets and the blueprints to Stark, his eyes had gone wide with amazement, talking about how it was incredible that a person with no formal training or education could construct such an amazing pair of weapons.

And then he broke out a small Flathead screwdriver, popped open the battery compartment, and in the course of sixty seconds, increased my power reserves by fifty percent. That's why he's a billionaire, and I had been scrambling to pay rent month and and month out. Of course, New York City currently had a glut of empty apartment and condos, and I was in the process of moving to much...fancier digs.

"Look at you, Herman. Tony Stark himself studying your weapons and making them better without breaking a sweat. Even at the pinnacle of your success, there's someone who is effortlessly better than you are."

"A man's got to know his limitations," I told Max. "Besides, I'm having the smartest man in the world upgrading my equipment for free."

"Yes...and what will you do with that equipment, Herman? There are no more zombies to kill. No more civilians to save. All the money and gold in the world is worthless without a functioning economy. You can just walk down to Best Buy and grab a stereo without paying for it. There really is no country for a man like you anymore, is there?"

I shrugged. "I have plans. But I didn't come here to discuss them with you."

"Ah. Then why did you come here? I'm curious. I would imagine you would want to keep your distance from me at all costs."

From the plastic bag, I pulled out a bottle of beer, one of the plastic kinds with a screw-on top that no self-respecting male would drink from unless he was at a football game. I opened up Electro's meal tray and shoved the bottle towards him. "I figured, you'd want to help me make a toast."

"A toast?" He eyed the bottle carefully, reaching out for it as I pulled a matching bottle from the plastic bag. "A toast to what?"

"We're having a wake tonight. For Aleksei. And...when we thought you were dead, he led a toast to you, Max. Maybe you'd want to extend the same courtesy to him."

"Really? After all I've done to you, after the pain I've inflicted..."

"I personally could care less, Max," I shot back. "I'd let you rot in here if I could. But this isn't about me. It's about Aleksei. It's your call."

"Hmm. You have a point, Herman. Aleksei was a big, dumb rock. But he was a loyal rock." After a second, he unscrewed the top of the beer bottle, and I did the same. The beer was warm, but it wasn't the liquid that mattered, but the words. Electro raised his bottle towards me, and I responded with my own salute. "To Aleksei," Maxwell Dillon proclaimed. "May his Heaven find plenty of walls to plow through."

"Smart-ass," I said, a grin on my face as I took a swig. Screwing the top back on, I pushed my bottle through the tray as well. "Here. I know they're feeding you prison food. Have a little something on me."

"Thank you, Herman." I nodded, and turned to walk down the long corridor back towards the guard post. "You know, I am telling the truth. This isn't over. Dormammu will be back. I'll be at his side. And there will be a reckoning, Herman. Oh, yes," Electro said, a sneer in his words, "there will be a reckoning."

X

"Can I get another whiskey and soda, Fred?"

"On it, Doctor!" Fred easily slid past the other bartender, snagging a bottle of Jack Daniels 1954 from the shelve in the process. "Single or double?"

"Make it a double," Doctor Octopus answered. "I'm not driving."

I laughed as the amber liquid filled the glass. "Fred," I told him, sitting next to the good Doctor, "are you using Jack Daniels 1954 as a bottom shelf MIXER?"

"Why the hell not," he called back with a big grin. "We've got cases of it in the back! I can't believe that when the world was coming to an end, no one thought to hit the high end night clubs! They were just cases of the good stuff sitting around for the taking!"

"In that case, I'll take a Stolichnaya Elit!" The high-priced vodka filled my glass, a faint taste of spice and cream on my gullet as I sipped the drink. "Whoa," I said. "That is damn smooth."

"And there is plenty, and I mean PLENTY, more where that came from, mate! We're probably going to have to expand into the place next door for the room!"

"You've been dipping into your own stock tonight, haven't you?" I laughed as I looked at Fred's red eyes. "You're tipsy!"

"Hey, I'm not drinking that American swill you stocked your hideout with, Herman. I'm enjoying the good stuff!"

Yeah, Fred was on his way to being smashed. The other bartender simply mixed drinks and served them. Tonight, the Bar With No Name was having a combination wake and grand opening, fully open bar, no cash allowed or wanted. Hell, most cash was worthless anyway. Anything people wanted was just around for the taking, and no matter how much SHIELD and the government warned otherwise, people were just taking what they needed and what they wanted. It was going to take more than a week for everything to shake out and get back to some semblance of normal.

This past week had been a blur to me. While everyone else on the planet had been in recovery mode, trying to take stock of what was lost, helping to dispose of the massive number of corpses that lined the streets, and figuring out a way to bring the world back to a working order, I had spent the first few days stone cold drunk. And then the next three days dealing with SHIELD, Doctor Strange and the Avengers as they debriefed me on the Darkhold, Dormammu, and what had really happened to Norman Osborn. And then a couple more days drunk.

And then the day after that mulling over an offer.

And today helping set up the Bar for its grand reopening.

There had been talk about moving the Bar to a new location, a place a little more upscale, a little more luxurious. That talk had happened between Fred and myself that very first night, when the two of us had broken open the front door to the Bar down in Alphabet City, passing the school bus that had been under siege that very first night, the site of my very first zombie kill. The lights still worked, but as Fred and I set about on the course of getting ourselves absolutely freaking' smashed, the door had opened. The bartender simply walked behind the bar, shooting a look at Fred that caused the Australian to sheepishly go around to a bar stool, and began pouring us drinks. That quashed any talk about moving the Bar.

Over the course of the week, once Fred had sobered up, he began to take stock of the bar's stock, and found it lacking. While I was out being interrogated and cross-examined by Colonel Fury, Fred had slowly begun to restock the bar's alcohol supply. Gone were the days of Classic Club liquor and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Now, Fred's nose sniffed out the high end stuff. He brought stuff from Fifth Avenue: $500 dollar bottles of aged Scotch, bottles of wine from the turn of the 19th century, beers with unpronounceable names. It had become his quest to restock the Bar with the high end goods that villains like us used to dream about as we pounded down Golden Anniversary beer.

Until yesterday. When I came into the Bar for a drink after getting the offer, and there was Fred. Behind the bar. Learning how to pour a proper drink from the mute bartender.

"The way I see it, mate," Fred had explained to me as he mixed me up a Jack-and-coke, "crime as we know it is over. Everything's out there for the taking. I could go down to the bank and pick up $100,00 and no one would give a damn. And when the new laws come down, how much do you want to bet they end up being old-school, Wild West style laws, I mean harsh and swift? Forget that. I'm retiring, Herman," he told me. "I'm opening up a bar. This bar. I'm the new partner, mate. I keep everything stocked, and the bartender pours the drinks. Because, hey, everyone need a place to get drunk, right?"

X

"...and Aleksei just scratches his head, and goes 'but you showed me on the map where you wanted me to bust up that camp of rebels.' And the government guy takes the map, turns it right side up, and tells Aleksei he had been holding the damn map wrong! He had accidentally busted up a government camp!"

I smirked, remembering that story as Speed Demon told it to our table. "So later on, I ask Aleksei what had happened. He just put that dumb smirk on his face and goes 'the rebels made me a better offer.'"

That broke up the table. Hydro-Man howled as Speed Demon sipped from his beer, and even I smiled brightly at the tale. "Man...you know, Aleksei wasn't dumb," Speed Demon said. " He was just...simple. Herman told me that," he said, pointing the bottle of beer in my direction. "Yeah. He had a good heart. I always wondered what would have happened if he had gone legit. Probably would have ended up a bouncer as some high-end casino somewhere," I said. "I mean, seriously, you start trouble at a casino, one look at Aleksei and your ass is going somewhere else."

"Too bad we're never going to find out," Hydro-Man said. "It's a shame, too. Look at us. We're all going to have to go get real jobs now. Crime isn't going to pay anymore."

"Hey, I already got a gig lined up," Speed Demon said. "High speed courier. The roads and highways are still a mess, and they're using the airports for emergency services. Stuff still needs to get places."

"I'll probably end up with SHIELD." Hydro-Man saw the eyebrows go up around the table. "There's a lot of places that need water and new irrigation system. The old water sources are filled with dead bodies and won't be clean for a while. Aqueduct convinced me to go apply for the reconstruction effort. I'll probably hear something tomorrow."

"Good for you, Morris," I said, saluting him with my bottle of beer.

"What about you," Speed Demon asked. "You got anything lined up? I would imagine they're pounding on your door to offer you a job of some sort."

I gave a half-hearted shrug. "I'm sure something will come up...I have a couple of irons in the fire..."

X

"Herman!"

I had just stepped out of the bathroom when Boomerang called me over to the bar. I walked with unsteady steps, the mix of beer and vodka not settling well in my system. "This just got dropped of for you," Fred told me, pulling a package wrapped in brown paper from behind the bar. "No name on it. Someone gave it to the Prowler and said it was for you."

"Huh. Well, it ain't ticking. That's a good sign." I undid the string holding the paper together, and carefully unfolded the wrapping, my hands shaking slightly from the alcohol. Inside the paper was another wrapped package, this one in white tissue paper, along with a little envelope. I opened that one first. The writing swam slightly in front of my eyes as I read it once, and than a second time to confirm what I had read.

"Dear Herman," the paper said. "I've been assigned, by my request, to Molecule Man's initiative team operating out of Colorado. I figured this way, we'll never see each other again. I owe you this much, though, for the hell I put you through. Pete."

"Well, who the bloody hell is it from," Boomerang slurred.

"Pete," I responded. Boomerang blinked in surprise as I went to unwrap the tissue paper. It slowly was revealed to us, a thick, curved piece of gray polymers, tapering to a wickedly sharp point at the end. I knew what it was immediately. It took Fred a few more seconds.

"That's..."

"Yeah." I held the Rhino's horn carefully in both hands. It had been polished, and severed cleanly at the end where it should have been attached to the suit. "It's Aleksei's," I spoke quietly.

We stared at it quietly for a few seconds, in the din of the bar. "Tomorrow," Fred finally said, "when I'm sure I'm sober, I'm gonna hang that above the door."

I nodded slowly. "I think that's a damn good idea."

X

The communicator in my pants buzzed. It took me a few tries to fish it out, my fingers refusing to slide into the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. I held it up in front of me, reading the text message that I had just received.

"MEET ME OUTSIDE, ACROSS THE STREET. MM."

MM? Who the hell did I...

Oh, crap.

"Fred...Fred!"

"What?"

"Do you have any chewing gum? Or Febreze?"

"I got some Big Red."

"I need a piece. No. Two pieces."

"Ok, ok!" He fished under the bar as I smelled myself. I smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. Damn it. "Here," Boomerang said, handing me two foil-wrapped pieces. I shoved them into my mouth, chewing and getting as much saliva in my mouth as I could to wash the cinnamon taste around. "What the hell's going on?"

"No time to talk," I said, spitting the gum back into the foil. "How's my hair look?"

"Like a damn rat's nest." But I was already on the move as Fred criticized me. "Herman, who the hell..."

I lost him in the din as I pushed my way through the crowd. A lot of hands slapped me on the back, some of them shoving drinks at me, but I ignored them all as I made it to the front door. I remembered to grab my jacket before stepping outside into the November night, which was just starting to turn bitterly cold. I threw it on as I scanned the dark street, looking for the person who had sent me the text.

"Over here, Herman," her voice called out.

I carefully made my way across the road, hoping not to bump into the school bus of any of the parked cars. The sky was overcast, clouds blocking the stars and the moon, and all the lights were out in Alphabet City. ConEd had gone through and turned out the power girds for most of Manhattan, as people who died or fled their homes didn't have time to turn their lights off. Right now, the light pouring from the windows of the Bar With No Name was being made by a generator, the gasoline siphoned from the cars lining the street to power the drunkenly revelry inside.

She was in a thick black peacoat, as opposed to my brown bomber jacket, standing next to a fire hydrant. "Whoa," Ms. Marvel said as I carefully approached. "You smell like a speakeasy."

"Well," I said, focusing really really hard on not slurring my words or falling down. I wasn't that drunk, but why take chances? "The wake's been going on since seven. It's...what time is it?"

"0300," she replied.

"Really? Wow." I rubbed at my eyes. "It's...been cathartic. Lot of booze. Lot of memories. Lot of talk about what the hell we're going to do next. It's tough out there for a criminal now," I said with a smirk. "A lot of us are probably going to go legitimate, try to get real jobs."

"You're kidding me."

"Hey, Speed Demon's already opened his own courier service, and Doctor Octopus wants to get back into teaching again." Shaking my head, I told her, "it's our world now. We helped save it, and now we're going to help rebuild it."

"And it's all because of you, Herman." I waved my hand at her, but she continued. "I know you're modest, and want to stay off the radar...but it's true. This might not have come to pass if you hadn't been in the middle of things. You're the reason this world's still here, Herman." She took a stepped forward. "Thank you," Ms. Marvel said as she lightly kissed me on the cheek.

I went flush. She had to see how red my face had gotten. "Um...er...wow. Thanks. I mean...you're welcome? Yeah. You're welcome."

A small giggle escaped from the blonde powerhouse. "Fred told me you'd blush."

"Fred?"

"Well, yeah. I called earlier to make sure you were sober enough to talk. I wasn't going to have you come out here all sloppy drunk and hammered. You'd make a fool out of yourself. He told me if I gave you a peck, you'd turn into a blushing schoolboy. Turns out, he was right."

"Damn it, Fred," I groused good-naturedly. I was going to come up with some witty, smooth reply to take advantage of the opening, when something cold touched the end of my nose. I put a finger on it, pulling back a bit of clear wetness as another bit of cold hit my ears. Looking up at the sky, I could see hundreds of white flakes falling towards the street. "Huh. It's snowing."

"Flurries tonight," Ms. Marvel replied. "No accumulation. So it's not going to hamper the clean-up effort." She gave a weary sight. "You know...how long is everything going to revolve around what happened? Everything is tying into removing dead bodies, and moving citizens around, and..."

"Hey." She looked at me with worried eyes, and I shot back my best grin. "Just...listen. No traffic. No planes. It's the first snow of the season. Enjoy the little things for a moment."

"I'm not used to New York being so quiet," she admitted. "Look, Herman...the reason I'm here is, I want you to really consider our offer to you."

"Oh. That's why you're here," I replied.

"Come on, Herman. You know I can't go in there and hoist a beer with everyone. To them, I'm Ms. Marvel, blonde bombshell who'd they like to see naked. With you...ok, I'm sure you want to see me naked, but at least you're holding a conversation with me and not trying to paw me because I kissed you on the cheek. I came here to see you because...I want you working with us. You're smart, you have powerful weapons...and you're brave. You're incredibly brave and you don't know when the hell to give up. And...maybe, deep down inside, away from zombies and demigods, they're a nice guy in there I wouldn't mind getting to know. Hell, you have Henry Pym gushing over your technical genius, and he's not the easiest guy in the world to please."

"Pym? Really?" I looked up at the snow, letting the flakes hit my cheek. "Is there even a need anymore, though? Does the world need someone like me around?"

"It's not over, Herman. The Absorbing Man and Titania are up in Seattle and aren't showing any signs of leaving. The U-Foes ran out on North Carolina and have gone AWOL. And we haven't heard anything out of Apocalypse or Doctor Doom since this whole mess started." She sighed again, a wry look on her face. "When one crisis ends, Herman, another one's beginning somewhere else. Besides...what are you going to do? Go into engineering? I'd bet you'd be bored with in a week."

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jacket before responding. "You know...where I'm standing right now? This is where I killed my first zombie. Completely by accident, I shoved this guy backwards and he hit his head on that fire hydrant right there. I was so afraid I had killed a guy, I was looking for excuses. Look at me now. Look at where I'm standing. In the exact same place where it all began." The snow was melting in my hair, drops of water dripping down as I ran a hand through my brown mane. "Full circle. Hell, I'm coming full circle. And that means a closed system, where nothing new enters, and nothing new leaves. I was really never a fan of a closed system."

"So...is that a yes? Or is that a no?"

I shook my head, not believing what I was about to say. "I think what it is, Ms. Marvel is...Avengers Assemble."

The smile on her face shone through the snowy night. "That's great, Herman. Just great." She put out her arms to me, motioning me to walk up and embrace her.

"Actually," I said after a few seconds, "instead of that hug, there's this diner just up the road. I used to eat there a lot after a night of drinking. How about we celebrate over a cup of coffee...Carol?"

Ms. Marvel...Carol...chuckled. "You know, yeah. A cup of coffee would be great on a cold winter's night."

"Then come on. Let's get me sobered up." I turned, and extended the crook of my arm to her, not bothering to hide the wide smile on my face. "Lady, take my hand."

THE END

X

TO BE CONTINUED IN "TRANSISTOR"


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